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1 DOW WORKER OUTREACH MEETING 

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6 June 20, 2007 

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12 SimmonsCooper, LLC 

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14 707 Berkshire Boulevard 

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16 East Alton Illinois 62024 

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25 Court Reporter 

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 P A R T I C I P A N T S 

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Mr. Charles (Chick) R. Phillips, 

9 Sanford Cohen & Associates 

10 Mr. Grady Calhoun, NIOS.H 

11 Ms. Deb Detmers, 

District Director for Representative John Shimkus 

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Dow/Conalco/Spectrulite Employees: 
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1 IT IS STIPULATED AND AGREED by and between 

2 SimmonsCooper, LLC and Pohlman Reporting Company that 

3 the June 20, 2007 Dow Worker Outreach Meeting will be 

4 transcribed to the best of their ability by a Court 

5 Reporter. 

6 0-0-0 

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8 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. If I can have your 

9 attention, I think we're finally ready to -- to go 

10 here. We got everything in place. I think you know 

11 -- I think I met most everyone. I'm Chick Phillips. 

12 I'm with Sanford, Cohen and Associates called SC&A, 

13 and we're a contractor to the advisory board on 

14 Radiation and -- whatever it is -- Radiation and 

15 Worker Health. 

16 And we have been charged by the board on 

17 two things related to Dow. The first one of those is 

18 to review the SEC petition and the evaluation of the 

19 SEC petition by NIOSH. And in a recent board meeting 

20 we were asked to look into the thorium exposures past 

21. 1957. Immediately when that was given -- well, 

22 immediately when I was brought in to look into that 

23 the first -- one of the first things I did is call 

24 and ask him to set up the meeting for today. 

25 And I really appreciate your being here. 

0004 

1 I know you've gone through this several times and you 

2 probably would just as soon not go through it again. 

3 But the reason I did that is because I think you have 

4 important information. The documents we all know are 

5 not ·complete. And even when you have the documents 
6 you don't get the detail in the documents that you get 

7 from you who had the experience in working there. So 

8 again, I thank you very much for being here today and 

9 sharing the information with us. In setting the 

10 meeting up again -­ I think I'm going to call you 

11 okay -­

12 That's great. Absolutely. 

13 MR. PHILLIPS: thank for making the 

14 arrangements with you. And I know of a lot of you had 

15 something to do with that too including So I 

16 -­ and I appreciate all the help on doing that. I 

17 appreciate SimmonsCooper for hosting this for us and 

18 all the work that they did in advance with setting the 

19 meeting up particular I'll call him because I 

20 can't pronounce his last name. But all that. But 

21 again, I thank you very much for being here. 

22 What I'd like to do at this point is just 

23 let's go around the room, introduce yourself and 

24 briefly say what -­ for the workers what period of 

25 time you were working at the plant and if you, you 

0005 

1 know, sort of summarize whatever your job. I know 

2 I know you had more than one job. But if we could 

3 just do that to begin with, and then we'll -­ we'll 

4 proceed with the meeting. I'll give you a few details 

5 of what I'd like to do today, and then we'll go from 

6 there. So if we start with you, 

7 Yes, I'm I 

8 taught at Washington University for years, retired 

9 in And I've been acting as sort of the advisor 

10 for the Special Exposure Cohort group for the Dow 

11 Madison site and am the designated SEC petitioner for 

12 the site. So I'd also just like to thank everybody 

13 for coming this -­ this time to provide even more 

14 detailed information to SC&A and to NIOSH. 

15 I've come 

16 to know a lot of the workers through my association in 

17 trying to help the employees at General Steel 

18 Industries. I met Mr. early in that beginning 

19 project and have gathered a lot of information 

20 regarding Dow in trying to assist these workers any 

21 way I can in sharing and researching information about 

22 the facility. 

23 , 24 with Dow. I started in the pot room, went to 

25 finally ended up going to inspection and to 

0006 

1 supervision before I retired in -- at the end of 
2 '83. 

3 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you. 

4 I'm I 

5 worked at Dow from '55 to And I had 

6 my own office in Number 2 Building which is the 

7 building that was located between the main plant and 

8 the main building and operated between the sales 

9 department and production. And it was my job to get 

10 orders from the sales department and send them out to 

11 all the different contractors. It was commercial and 

12 defense contractors. And so I was in the rolling mill 

13 picking up samples at different times and out in the 

14 extrusion plant. 

15 They had a standing order that I was to 

16 receive ten feet of every extrusion that was -- that 

17 we produced which I stored in my building. And I 

18 remember handling mostly thorium products. I remember 

19 the sheet goods more than anything else. And I had 

20 about at least -- at least a dozen different defense 

21 contractors I sent the materials out to. And the 

22 products I remember more was in the old 63 gauge more 

23 than anything else, and it was all the 

24 MR. PHILLIPS: Excuse me. Can we -- can 

25 we pick up on that later. 

0007 

1 Okay. Yes. 

2 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you very much. But 

3 I'd like to get that -­

4 Yes. 

5 : -- in sequence with the 

6 other stuff. Thank you. 

7 My name's I 

8 worked at Dow from 1954 to I retired. I I 

9 worked all them years in a cast house in the casting 

10 department and in the pot room and as a melter and 

11 metal caster. And I spent the latter part of my work 

12 years out in the warehouse where the work was a little 

13 lighter. And I worked in the finishing department 

14 also. 

15 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you, 

16 My name's I worked 

17 1960 to when I retired. I worked in the cast 

18 house the whole time on the magnesium floor and the 

19 aluminum floor as a melter, metal caster, and crew 

20 leader for all those years. 

21 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you, 

22 My name's I worked 

23 at Dow from 1955 until I was a mag melter part 
24 of the time, ingot finisher and aluminum melter. 
 

25 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you, 
 

0008 
 

1 My name's I 

2 started in and retired in . I worked my 

3 whole time in the casting department, metal caster, 

,4 melter, and a crew leader. I worked every time they 

5 worked thorium up until the time I retired. 

6 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you, 

7 My name is 

8 I was the in the casting department from 

9 to So I worked in 

10 receiving and storing the metal, the castings -­ the 

11 aluminum castings, the scalping, everything that had 

12 to do with processing metal and also storing of the 

13 thorium and furnishing it to the -­ to the pot room 

14 for them to use. 

15 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you, 

16 I worked 

17 from I worked years in the rolling 

18 mill then got shipped over to extrusion. I was press 

19 operator and helper in extrusion. 

20 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you, 

21 I'm I hired 

22 in in and retired in And I worked mainly in 

23 the extrusion and rolling mill. And I worked in all

24 three departments. I was a press -­ I was a Press 

25 operator in extrusion for the last years I think. 

0009 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you, 

2 I'm I went 

3 to work for Dow in I retired in I 

4 started out in the extrusion department for one year, 

5 and I was transferred to the rolling mill. And in 

6 I went to maintenance and I worked throughout the 

7 plant. 

8 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you, 

9 I'm I started in 

10 I spent years in the rolling mill 

11 and years in maintenance. 

12 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you, 

13 : I'm I 

14 started work at , and I worked until 

15 (phonetic). And I worked in all the departments, 

16 and I -­ I was a finisher on the heavy press. But I 

17 worked in all the departments in the plant. 

18 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you, 

19 My name is I was a 
•• 

20 heavy press operator. I hired in in and retired 

21 in years and did all the smaller presses 

22 also, 7, 6, 9 Press. 

23 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you. 

24 I worked from 

25 to extrusion 

0010 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you, 

2 I hired 

3 in in to I started in extrusion. I worked 

4 as a finisher. I also worked on presses as a helper. 

5 I worked in the mill as a roll grinder, and I -- my 

6 job was a PSA, plant service attendant in 

7 maintenance. 

8 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you. 

9 I hired in in 

10 as hourly for years, then I went 

11 into in extrusion. And I spent about 

12 in the cast house one time, but primarily 

13 extrusion. I retired in 

14 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you, 

15 My name is I 

16 worked primarily in the extrusion department from 

17 to And I worked in shipping 

18 mostly. 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you, 

20 My name is 

21 I worked at Dow two different times. In I 

22 worked in the rolling mill. I worked just about every 

23 piece of equipment in that rolling mill during that 

24 year and a half that I was there. I quit and went 

25 back to school. And I came back in as an 

0011 

1 industrial engineer, and I worked most of the pieces 

2 of equipment again as an IE both in extrusion and in 

3 the rolling mill. I quit in to take another job 

4 in 

5 And also worked down there. His 

6 name was , he's passed away. And he was 

7 there from , and he worked in extrusion 

8 as a packer. 

9 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you, 

10 MY name is I 

11 started in , retired in All my 

12 time was spent in the extrusion department. 

13 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you, 1 

14 My name is I 

15 hired in in and retired in · · I worked 90 
16 percent of the time in extrusion, every job in there, 

17 operator and helper on every press, finisher and 

18 finisher helper in every department, packing, and 

19 that's about it. 

20 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you, 

21 I was an 

22 inspector down there, and I worked in both extrusion 

23 and the rolling mill. I hired in in , and I 

24 retired in Inspection was a different department 

25 in and of itself. And so you were -- in the beginning 

0012 

1 you were required to work throughout the plant. So I 

2 -- then later they became jobs and it was separated 

3 into each, but it still was in the inspection 

4 department. So I spent the first years in the 

5 rolling mill and then the rest of the time in 

6 extrusion. 

7 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you, 

8 My name is 

9 and I worked from And I was an 

10 on the hot mill. I was a 

11 finishing mill roller, and I also worked in the 

12 shipping department before I retired in 

13 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you, 

14 ' '•. , and I 

15 began working at Dow in through or to 

16 rather. I worked on all the mills in various 

17 capacities. I left in to go to work for the 

18 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you, 

20 MR. CALHOUN: I'm Grady Calhoun. I'm with 

21 NIOSH. I'm a health physicist. I worked at a nuclear 

22 power plant for a while, commercial power. I worked 

23 at Fernald for 11 years as a health physicist, and 

24 I've been with NIOSH in the dose reconstruction world 

25 for going on six years now. 

0013 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: And I'm Chick Phillips, and 

2 as I said before I'm with SC&A, Sanford, Cohen and 

3 Associates. I've been with them since 1990. Before 

4 that I was -- I worked for the US Public Health 

5 Service and the EPA. I retired in 1990. I have -- a 

6 health physicist with about 45 years experience. And 

7 again, I appreciate your being here. Do you have -- I 

8 mean are you okay? You getting everything? It's 

9 good. 

10 I'd like to kind of explain a 

11 little bit. You know, these guy say, you know, they 
12 worked all over the -- you know, their department and 

13 that. Well, there's like 30 -- 20, 30 jobs at 

14 different job levels. So there's like -- you know, 

15 they're not just on one -- one area. They're all 

16 over, and there's like -- you know, like 20 or 30 jobs 

17 in that, you know, in that department. I can show it 

18 to you. 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

20 And another thing I'd like to 

21 -- on this here customers I, you know, gave you the 

22 .top half is all that we sent thorium and radioactive 

23 materials to. And you were saying they -- you were 

24 after from '57 on for your, you know, thorium and 

25 that. 

0014 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: Uh-huh. 

2 .They started in '54 down 

3 there, and it's all the same, you know, deal. That's 

4 -- that's just like the rolling mill. That was just 

5 different jobs. 

6 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. Good. We'll make a 

7 copy of that. 

8 This is -- you know, I got you 

9 a copy here. But all these here were all sent 

10 radioactive materials to. These were just regular Dow 

11 jobs. About 95 percent of the jobs that Dow did was 

12 for the government. 

13 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

14 So that's -- that gives a 

15 little· bit more of a thought on what's happening. 

16 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you. What I'd like 

17 to do now is kind of outline for you what I would like 

18 to take place today. But again, the emphasis here -­

19 the purpose of this is to obtain information. So I 

20 don't want it to appear to be a highly structured 

21 meeting where we're only interested in certain 

22 information. If you have something that you consider 

23 to be important regarding the operations at Dow 

24 Chemical and its successors, then please share that 

25 with us today because that's the purpose of being 

0015 

1 here. And I know you've done this before. 

2 We're not -- we're not going to do this 

3 exactly like it's been done before where each 

4 individual gets up and gives their prospective from 

5 what they did in their particular area. What I would 

6 like to do is to show you some areas that I'd like to 

7 emphasize and then have you respond to that. And it's 
8 wide open, whatever you want to say, whatever you 

9 think is -- is relevant to that, important to that 

10 particular topic. And please identify yourself and 

11 say what you have to say because we're here for that 

12 purpose. We want to get information whatever that 

13 information is. 

14 And sometimes what seems like the least 

15 significant fact can lead you into places down the 

16 road that wouldn't -- you wouldn't have been there had 

17 you not had these little prompters up in the 

18 beginning. So again, it's open, feel free to share 

19 whatever you think is relevant to it. Try to keep it 

20 to the subject, but -- but please share with us 

21 whatever you have. 

22 And what I'm going to ask to do once we 

23 get started here -- and this is for my benefit mainly 

24 and that is and I talked about before the meeting 

25 that he had a diagram and sort of prospective of the 

0016 

1 way that thorium was handled in the plant from the 

2 very beginning. And that's something -- I have 

3 reviewed basically all the documents that are 

4 available from NIOSH and all the public meetings from 

5 the SEC petition and the evaluation petition. I've 

6 gone all -- I've gone through that. Quite frankly 

7 right now there's a lot of information rolling around 

8 in my head. 

9 But the one thing I can't piece together 

10 from that is sort of from the beginning when the 

11 thorium came in, how it got alloyed, the whole process 

12 through the plant. And when we get started here I'm 

13 going to ask to, as quickly as he can, sort of 

14 run through that with -- with 's help because I 

15 know they have spent a lot of' time on that. So could 

16 you do that for us when -- not right now but when we 

17 get started? Because that would help me. 

18 Again, you know, I know the -- the various 

19 sections of the plant from the -- you know, the pot 

20 room down to the rolling mill. But it's not quite 

21 clicked in my head as to what the whole process was 

22 from beginning to end. So if we could -- if we could 

23 go through that, I'd appreciate it. 

24 If you would do the first slide. 

25 And I -- I went into a little bit of this, 

0017 

1 that SC&A is a technical consultant to the advisory 
 

2 board. We're a professional firm specializing 
 

3 particularly in radiation health physics although we 
 
4 have some other specialties. But that's our primary 

5 expertise. We're not a legal firm. We're not 

6 involved in the claims or compensation portion of the 

7 -- the act that we all are familiar with. So our 

8 purpose is to provide the board with technical support 

9 and evaluations for the SEC petition. 

10 And as I said before we -- as far as Dow 

11 is concerned we are involved in two aspects of that. 

12 So what I'm today is to get information for both of 

13 those. When we reviewed the NIOSH evaluation of your 

14 SEC petition there are some questions that -- that we 

15 have that at the end of this I'd like to just put 

16 those questions up here and get your input on trying 

17 to answer some of those questions. 

18 Go to the next slide. 

19 As far as the purpose of the meeting we 

20 want to gather information specifically for thorium 

21 and again any other radioactive materials that you can 

22 identify as they were -- as they were used and 

23 processed at the Dow Madison plant and -- well, at the 

24 site. So the -- the successor owners are involved in 

25 that too. 

0018 

1 I'd like to the extent that we can get a 

2 clarification on the uranium extrusion and the rod 

3 straightening process that occurred during this 1950 

4 to '60 time frame. And again, as I said get a better 

5 understanding of the whole process of the thorium 

6 usage and alloy at the plant. 

7 Go to the next slide please. 

8 And of course, we want to know as much as 

9 we can about the exposure conditions at Dow. And I'll 

10 go into that a little later on. But gain a better 

11 understanding of the thorium and uranium process and 

12 the conditions, that's sort of repetitive from what I 

13 said before. 

14 And I know I've seen in the record from 

15 your affidavits and from all the meetings what you had 

16 to say about the monitoring and protective equipment 

17 in place. Again, I think I unders.tand that. But if 

18 you have more to add to that, we certainly would like 

19 to hear it. 

20 And then the last one can you see? I 

21 guess I'm in the way here. The last -- the last item 

22 is just to allow you to present any information that 

23 you feel is appropriate for the meeting. 

24 Go to the next slide. 

25 Again, I've already stated that. 
0019 

1 Go to the next slide please. 

2 Again, I'm aware of the -- the statements 

3 and we of course have all of those from previous 

4 meetings. But again, that's not to restrict you from 

5 repeating any information that you want to share that 

6 you've shared before. 

7 The next slide. 

8 Again, that's sort of repetitive. We want 

9 to know anything about the material. 

10 Go to the next slide. 

11 And then this one -- and we referred to 

12 that before, were the relationships with other AEC/DOE 

13 sites for shipping and receipt of thorium and other 

14 radioactive materials. I know you've addressed that 

15 before, but you know, that -- again, we'd like to have 

16 any information that you have that you've not shared 

17 before or maybe that you've shared before regarding 

18 this. And I know, Bill, you· just gave me something in 

19 that regard. 

20 Go to the next slide. 

21 Sort of the process that we need to do 

22 just so that we -- the record can be maintained and 

23 that just for generally to keep the meeting flowing 

24 well give your name, job description, and date of 

25 activity. Actually we already have that. So when you 

0020 

1 speak if you would just identify yourself by name, is 

2 that -- is that fine? 

3 And it's important when you give 

4 information that you identify is that information that 

5 you have personal knowledge of from your experience or 

6 this was something you heard from someone else. It 

7 doesn't mean that if you heard it it's not important 

8 to bring it out because again, that can lead you to 

9 getting information that you need. But it's important 

10 that we identify whether you have personal knowledge 

11 of that or whether it came from someone else. 

12 The next slide. 

13 When we talk about things it would be -­

14 we need to know where and try to identify the time 

15 frame that you're talking about to the best of the 

16 ability, the details of how often, how much, what 

17 duration. In other words, as much of details as we 

18 can about whatever you might be referring to. Again, 

19 back to the protective procedures and monitoring in 

20 place. 

21 And then this last one is very important. 
22 To your knowledge when you're referring to something 

23 were there documents that were produced that could 

24 verify or extend what you're talking about. And if 

25 and if there were, do you have a knowledge of where 

0021 

1 those were kept. Okay. Those ~- you can -- you can 

2 turn it off. We'll get to these specific questions 

3 later. 

4 Any comments that you have or questions 

5 that you have before I ask to -- to give us a 

6 brief statement or whatever he would wish to say? 

7 Okay, 

8 Okay. Well, the first thing 

9 is I am very pleased to welcome Chick Phillips and ' 

10 Grady Calhoun here because it gives us all an 

11 opportunity to let them know things that are highly 

12 relevant to the Special Exposure Cohort and in 

13 particular to having it extend into the 1961 to 1998 

14 time period. That's really the -- a major thrust of 

15 today's visit. 

16 Originally Mr. Thurber (phonetic) from 

17 SC&A was going to attend and he had to bow out. So I 

18 just wanted to mention that. I -- I wanted to mention 

19 one word about the last point that Chick made, and 

20 that is about the documents produced and where would 

21 they have been kept. And just for the record I w.anted 

22 to mention that we have been seeking documents that 

23 are relative to the processes related to thorium 

24 production, uranium processing, but particularly the 

25 thorium aspect and its relationship to Atomic Energy 

0022 

1 Commission activities for the last two years. 

2 And at this point we believe that there 

3 are significant records still kept at the Spectrulite 

4 plant. And in fact, the original plan for this 

5 meeting was tomorrow to visit the Spectrulite plant 

6 assuming that we could get access to it and not only 

7 to see the plant and to get some idea of the physical 

8 aspects of -- of the buildings but also hopefully to 

9 get access to the records that are kept at -- at the 

10 Madison plant. 

11 And I would just say that I believe that 

12 that search of those records still needs to take 

13 place. I'm really personally disappointed that that 

14 couldn't take place tomorrow. I'm not sure why. But 

15 I -- I would strongly encourage both SC&A and NIOSH to 

16 get together and to -- to investigate those records to 

17 compliment what they're going to hear today. 
18 The other thing I wanted to mention that's 

19 highly relevant is that last year and 

20 I and Robert Stephan -- but primarily and I had 

21 extensive negotiations with the Dow Midland 

22 headquarters and with Mr. 

23 who's their chief counsel at Kirkland & Ellis Law Firm 

24 to try to get the documents at Dow Midland that were 

25 related to the Madison plant and in particular to any 

0023 

1 documents that would show shipments of magnesium 

2 thorium alloys to any of the AEC plants but 

3 particularly to Rocky Flats in Colorado. 

4 And then -- and that first round of 

5 negotiations actually led to the production of no 

6 documents from Dow. We then pressed the point this 

7 year, and NIOSH then sent a letter to Dow Midland on 

8 the 30th of January of this year. And at the end of 

9 April before our SEC meeting with the board on the 

10 27th of April Dow Midland produced a large number of 

11 documents. And -- and some of that was very helpful, 

12 although in my opinion the documents produced were not 

13 complete and they definitely excluded documents 

14 related to the Rocky Flats shipments because NIOSH, 

15 for reasons that are completely mysterious to me, did 

16 not feel that that was relevant to their sphere of 

17 investigations. Clearly after the May board meeting 

18 it is very relevant, and that -- that document source 

19 in Midland needs to be followed up on. 

20 And in particular and related to today I 

21 want to draw everybody's attention at -- at -- to 

22 Chick and Grady and also all the workers that one of 

23 the documents that was produced by Dow Midland was a 

24 document that they referred to called TDCC000316. And 

25 what that document is -- and I presented this to the 

0024 

1 board and SCA and NIOSH on May 4th during our SEC 

2 defense. This was a document dated 3/17/1958 from 

3 and it was an invoice from Dow Chemical at their South 

4 Brentwood, St. Louis office to Mallinckrodt Chemical 

5 Works and the Atomic Energy Commission, and it was for 

6 two things. But the first item was magnesium alloy 

7 plates, and the alloy is described as in this document 

8 some undecipherable letters, dash, 21XA, dash, and 

9 then an undecipherable digit and 8. 

10 And so -- and this was under an AEC 

11 contract which was the main Mallinckrodt contract, and 

12 that is W-14-108-ENG-8. So this is a purchase order 

13 contract between Dow Chemical and Mallinckrodt 
14 Chemical Works and the -­ and the US Atomic Energy 

15 Commission for some type of magnesium alloy plate that 

16 contains the letters 21XA. 

17 And then I pointed out to the board that 

18 in the list of magnesium alloys that -­ that Dow 

19 produced -­ and I showed them a table -­ there really 

20 are only two alloys of magnesium that end in 21A. One 

21 of those magnesium alloys is HM21A. HM21A, as I 

22 showed them in the table, contains manganese, .45 

23 percent to 1.1 percent and it contains thorium at 1.5 

24 to 2.5 percent. 

25 Now, the other 21A magnesium alloy, ZK21A 

0025 

1 is not a magnesium alloy, but it contains zinc and 

2 zirconium; zinc at two to 2.6 percent and zirconium at 

3 0.45 percent. And the end number is chopped off on my 

4 -­ on my table. 

5 So this document becomes extremely 

6 important. And if it turns out that the reference 

7 material -­ the magnesium alloy mentioned is HM21A, 

8 that that would be definite, conclusive, irrefutable 

9 proof that some of the Dow magnesium alloy and in 

10 particular thorium alloy was supplied to an AEC plant 

11 which is magnesium I mean Mallinckrodt Chemical 

12 Works. 

13 So I just must stress that this meeting 

14 has to be taken in conjunction with a more intensive 

15 document search at Dow Midland and at Dow Madison. 

16 The other thing that I wanted to just 

17 mention that later on in Chick Phillips' questions you 

18 all will hear some particular questions about Bay 

19 City. And I -- I know you all know this, but I just 

20 wanted to remind everybody that Dow Chemical had major 

21 plants in Bay City, Michigan and in Midland, Michigan 

22 and in Texas City, Texas as a matter of fact. And the 

23 two Michigan plants were heavily into thorium alloy 

24 production, thorium magnesium alloys in particular. 

25 Both plants have recently been -- had their licenses 

0026 

1 terminated and have undergone decommissioning. So the 

2 Bay City Dow plant is a -- was a major producer of 

3 thorium alloys, and those questions relate to that. 

4 I'm not sure how many of you men know about operations 

5 at Bay City. 

6 There is one question that will come up 

7 that I did want to comment on and that is it -- it 

8 talks about data for chemical milling in Table 3 from 

9 a document by Silverstein in 1956 were taken in Bay 
10 City. What else was done in Bay City the question 

11 asked. And I do have some information from the NRC 

12 about what occurred at Bay City which I will provide 

13 to Mr. Phillips as a compliment to whatever 

14 information you all have. 

15 I would comment however that operations at 

16 -- at Bay City were different from operations at -- at 

17 Dow Madison. And so I'm not sure -- in fact, I think 

18 we would take the stance that radiation monitoring 

19 measurements made at Bay City really have not very 

20 much relevance to went on at -- to what went on at Dow 

21 Madison. And that's why I again think it's absolutely 

22 critical to get the Dow Madison documents. 

23 The other thing -- final thing I wanted to 

24 mention is that we have sent a large amount of 

25 material to NIOSH already. And I am operating under 

0027 

1 the assumption which I think is is confirmed, but 

2 that all of that material is -­ is now available to -­

3 not only to NIOSH but SC&A, to the board, and to the 

4 Departments of Labor and Defense; anybody working on 

5 this SEC who needs access to that information. 

6 So I think I'll let it go at that and 

7 we'll -­ we'll start the meeting. And again, I hope 

8 it's very productive and informative. 

9 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you, I was 

10 going to ask Grady if -­ if he -­ do you have anything 

11 you want to -­

12 MR. CALHOUN: Not particularly. I'm -­

13 I'm going to sit here and -­ and listen for the most 

14 part. But as you all know the -­ site has been 

15 granted SEC status up through the current covered 

16 operational period. And I think what -­ what we're 

17 looking at here is how can we link thorium to actual 

18 weapons, they had to find their way into weapons. But 

19 one thing that I want to make you all very aware of is 

20 that DOE, the Department of Energy decides if the site 

21 is a AWE or beryllium vendor, and the Department of 

22 Labor determines the time period. So it will 

23 ultimately be up to the Department of Labor to 

24 determine if the covered period extends longer than 

25 its current list. 

0028 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: I don't believe you 

2 identified yourself, did you? 

3 Oh, wife. 

4 My first name is 

5 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. Thank you for being 
6 here. Okay. What I'm going to do now -- , you 

7 want to -­

8 I got you a picture of a 

9 aerial view of the plant they used to, you know -- and 

10 it shows, you know, the departments and that. And you 

11 got a copy of this red piece. It shows where I know 

12 that they have ran the radioactive materials in -- you 

13 know, in that area. And on the east side of the plant 

14 it starts out with the casting department. Then in 

15 the center is more or less the extrusion department. 

16 And then on the west side is the rolling mill 

17 department. I'd kind of like to go with the guys from 

18 casting because that's where all of our metal came 

19 from is the casting department and go on -- on across. 

20 But we have two guys that has to leave here before 

21 noon. has to leave and 

22 

23 ·: He ' s got to leave. So I can 

24 -- and so go from there and just start off. And we 

25 can go right on across, and they can tell how -- how 

0029 

1 they ran their metals. And -- and I can't tell you 

2 nothing on their -- their end how they mixed it or 

3 anything else. 

4 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. Yes, 

5 I'd like to -- can I talk 

6 first? On this -- in the casting 

7 department I worked 36 years in there running this 

8 metal. And I'm confused what said. We 

9 always went to it, it was HM21A. We never used the A. 

10 I don't know why the A was used on the -- and HK -­

11 well, HK21 just like he said is two percent thorium 

12 and -- and one percent manganese. And HK31 -- I 

13 thought it was -- HK31 was three percent thorium and 

14 one percent zirconium. Is that right, ? 

15 Well anyway, the thing about my first time 

16 with -- whether it was in '55 I think when I looked at 

17 it and it said 31 it was during that time in my 36 

18 years. And we ran it on a continuous cast unit. So 

19 there was -- there was ten pots on each -- on the slab 

20 unit -- I mean, the regular ten -- ten, 6,000 pound 

21 pots on a slab unit,· and it was a continuous cast. In 

22 other words, when you get all your metal thorium 

23 alloyed up you had -- you had 60,000 pounds of molten 

24 metal to be cast out continuously. 

25 MR. PHILLIPS: When you say 6,000, that's 

0030 

1 the load? 
2 That's the load in a cast iron 

3 pot, and then the furnaces run from the bottom part. 

4 And once you get all those 10,000 pots alloyed up to 

5 specification on your -- usually a slab would run -­

6 the slab unit was HK31. Once you get going there's 

7 continuous casting. It was down the.basement. A saw 

8 automatically kicks in and cuts if off the desired · 

9 length. So you could run from now to eternity if you 

10 didn't get out of spec or have a breakdown. So you 

11 had a lot of thorium going without a period. And the 

12 same thing was on the billet unit which also had ten, 

13 6,000 pound pots. That was on AZ21 on that unit. And 

14 we'd do a -- well, we had two cast molds on that. You 

15 could put two pumps in and you could pump out two 

16 casts there. And it went to the basement and it had 

17 an eye picked in the saw to cut it off at the desired 

18 length. It was 40 inches normally. 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: So you pumped the material 

20 from the pot? 

21 You do what? 

22 MR. PHILLIPS: You pumped the material 

23 from the pots to the 

24 : (Inaudible) the lines on into 

25 -- into the mold. 

0031 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: -- to the molds? 

2 The lines were preheated 

3 electronically. So we could run that continuously the 

4 same way. Now, I won't mention -- we had two other 

5 units in there at the time. They were billets casting 

6 units. And we had an old intermittent unit that came 

7 from Dow Chemical in Midland, and that was a -- a 

8 Brock (phonetic). 

9 But anyway, on this thorium the first time 

10 that I had experience with it I opened the barrel and 

11 was going to alloy a pot up and I -- I don't remember 

12 now, there was a four or five notch thorium and they 

13 weighed about five, maybe six pounds possibly. But 

14 the one I remember weighed up about a scale -- a floor 

15 scale about 35 pounds of this thorium. Accidentally I 

16 dropped it on the concrete floor, and it actually 

17 burst into flames of orange, a bright -- guys can 

18 (inaudible) bright orange color. I presume the 

19 thorium was burnt right out of it. If you didn't get 

20 that thorium in the pot melted in the pot right away 

21 you'd burn most of your thorium up. You had -- the 

22 basket had to be hot when they'd drop them in the 

23 metal, there in the middle and stir it up and alloy 
24 it. 

25 But like I say, this was a continuous cast 

0032 

1 unit. And this worried me quite a bit. And the first 

2 respond I got was how it was going to affect me having 

3 children and that. I was told you'd have to sit on it 

4 for -- I've heard anywhere from 500 to 1,000 hours -­

5 or years to set on it before it would hurt you. So I 

6 -- I have a lot more to say, but maybe the other 

7 fellows in casting like I said. But I did this for 

8 years. I stayed the whole time on the mag floor. 

9 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. Going back, , to 

10 what you said, you have two people. Where -- where 

11 did you work, the two that are going to have to leave? 

12 He was a casting man. 

13 I worked in the casting 

14 department as a 

15 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

16 So I received the metal -­

17 the thorium bars in. We stored them in what we called 

18 a radioactive crib. And from there they was taken as 

19 needed into the pot room and processed into the HM21 

20 or HK31 whichever they might be running. 

21 MR. PHILLIPS: This is in Building 7; is 

22 that right? 

23 Building 7. Then we took 

24 the slabs, took them to the scalper, took off 

25 approximately three-eighths of an inch off of them all 

0033 

1 the way around so they can be sent to the rolling 
 

2 mill. 
 

3 MR. PHILLIPS: How -- how -- do you mind 
 

4 me interrupting you as we go along? 
 

5 No. 
 

6 MR. PHILLIPS: How was the scalping done? 
 

7 Explain that to me. 
 

8 Okay. I don't know how to 
 

9 explain it. You have this piece of metal, it's about 
 

10 the size of this table. It was cast in a very rough 

11 casting and sent around the table. The edges of it -­

12 we -- we trim out the edges with the cutting blades, 

13 then we send it up .to a -- into the scalper phase that 

14 lifts it up and drives it through. It pulls all the 

15 metal off of one side. Turn it around and send it 

16 back around. Come -- it turns and takes the metal off 

17 the other side of the face. 

18 All these are creating chips and dust and 

19 everything else that are flying all the time. It goes 
20 into a big hopper, and then chips all come into a 

21 container out the other side. Then you guys over in 

22 the mill get it from there. And it's usually -- most 

23 of it is inspected by inspection to make certain 

24 there's no oxides or anything else left in it so 

25 whenever it gets over to the mill that it isn't 

0034 

1 damaged. 

2 And then we also bring all the metal back 

3 that has been used by the extrusion department or -­

4 or the mill department. It's brought back in the 

5 containers which I have hourly people going through 

6 and sorting it all because sometimes there's metal 

7 thrown into these boxes that isn't thorium metal. So 

8 they have to individually check every single piece 

9 with a -- with a solution that's going to turn it red 

10 if it contains thorium or not. So we have to separate 

11 those metals so whenever these guys get it in the pot 

12 room they're not getting ahold of something that -­

13 that's not supposed to go into the remaking of billets 

14 or slabs again. So that's the portion of it that I 

15 remember. 

16 MR. PHILLIPS: Now, are those alloys that 

17 you were just talking about? Those are the -- the 

18 thorium alloys? 

19 ·: Yes. 

20 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

21 My name's I 

22 worked in the cast house. On that scalping operation 

23 he's talking about at the end of the shift there'd be 

24 a quarter inch or a half inch of dust all over the 

25 equipment, the rollers, and the floor, and on us too 

0035 

1 at the end of that shift. That's how dusty it was. 

2 When that slab went through that machine it made a big 

3 -- and a big cloud of dust went up on both operations 

4 of it. On the end scalping and then it went over to 

5 the face scalper it was the same thing. And that dust 

6 was all over the place. When we worked down there we 

7 breathed it all day. 

8 MR. PHILLIPS: Is that where the dust in 

9 the pot room came from too? 

10 No. No. 

11 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

12 The dust in the pot room was 

13 from alloying -- pumping the metal over and stirring 

14 it up and sludging the pots out. 

15 If I might -- I might also 
16 mention that being I had a lot of hourly 

17 employees working with me and -- and they were 

18 questioning about the thorium and the radioactive. 

19 And I didn't know anything about radioactive. And so 

20 I called up and had a metallurgist come down. We had 

21 safety meetings about it. We also had a metallurgist 

22 came down with two -- two of my hourly employees that 

23 were really fierce about saying we don't want to work 

24 around this thorium. And I finally had to set them 

25 down and I sat with them, and the name of the person 

0036 

1 was (phonetic). He's a metallurgist 

2 from Dow Chemical, and come and sat with me and these 

3 guys and told us we did not have anything to worry 

4 about this thorium. And therefore, I really never 

5 thought anything more about it until all of this 

6 started coming up. I just figured it's part of -­

7 part of working with these metals and don't worry 

8 about it. 

9 We were told the same -­ same 

10 thing in the casting part of it; that there was 

11 nothing to worry about. Heck, we -­ we ate in there, 

12 everything. And at that time we didn't even have a 

13 bre.ak -­ break room. We ate out -­ out in the open. 

14 There was nothing to keep it from getting in our food 

15 or anything else. 

16 I'd like to make a comment about this, all 

17 this business here. When we started there we were all 

18 young and we started working on this material. we 

19 trusted the corporation we worked for and the 

20 companies we worked for. We trusted our government to 

21 protect us. And when they told us that there was 

22 nothing to worry about we believed it. And it turned 

23 around that they lied to us. First the company lied 

24 to us and the government backed them up and let them 

25 do it. And that's all I've got to say about -­ about 

0037 

1 that. 

2 And not only that, when they were through 

3 running the thorium they had contaminated equipment 

4 all over the place including this scalper operation. 

5 It was like that for years and we still worked on it 

6 when we was running the regular metals. 

7 MR. PHILLIPS: When you -­ I'm sorry. 

8 When you were what? 

9 When we were running other 

10 alloys we were still all this equipment was 

11 contaminated, it was radioactive from the thorium we 
12 ran on it. It takes years for that to go away, and we 

13 was still getting exposed to it even though we didn't 

14 even know it. And nobody told us. We trusted our 

15 company and we trusted our government, and they let us 

16 down. 

17 Chick, I -- I think this 

18 would be a good time what I would like to do to put 

19 on the record is while we're talking about dust and 

20 fumes from at least two sources now -- to have 

21 everybody raise their hand and -- and see how many 

22 people in the room wore a film badge for radiation 

23 monitoring. Anybody who wore a film badge? 

24 I have a comment on that. 

25 We got comments on that. 

0038 

1 We never wore it until 


2 Spectrulite came in. 


3 Okay. 


4 I never had a badge or nothing 


5 until Spectrulite came in and they had a -- had a 


6 badge for us. But I don't remember what the account 


7 was. 


8 So that was in 1986, right? 


9 By the way, they -- they -­


10 

11 Yes. 

12 That wasn't until 1986 then, 

13 right? 

14 '83 at Spectrulite. '86, 

15 okay. 

16 Yeah. But I mean, before 

17 that none at all? 

18 Not at all. 

19 Okay. 

20 Spectrulite came in in '83 

21 though. 

22 The only -- the only person 

23 that would have worn a 

24 MR. PHILLIPS: Hold up. Please identify 

25 yourself, sir. 

0039 

1 ·: I 1

m 

2 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you. 

3 The only person in my 

4 time started in until I left. But in the majority 

5 of the years that thorium was produced there the only 

6 people that wore any x-ray or radioactive badges were 

7 the people conducting x-ray on forging stock for 
8 airplane equipment. None of the rest of us wore any. 

9 MR. PHILLIPS: And what what time frame 

10 was that? 

11 It was a that was from 

12 And I left in and I still didn't see any 

13 badges then. 

14 Even when you ran uranium there 

15 was no badges or nothing? 

16 No. No. No. Now, I 

17 wasn't involved with the uranium. But -­

18 I knew as he 

19 said here. And all the time I worked I've never had 

20 anybody complain to me and have a safety meeting on 

21 what -­ what effects it would have or nothing. I know 

22 he said was a high metallurgist for Dow 

23 Chemical. I talked to him a number of times, but I -­

24 I never remember a meeting being called to explain to 

25 you what you could do with the thorium other than 

0040 

1 handling -­ like you handle any other metal that you'd 

2 run, you'd get a slip at the beginning of the shift 

3 tells you how to -­ how to run the alloy. They follow 

4 procedures of that alloy, AZ31, ZK60, or whatever. We 

5 were never told any different -­ take any more 

6 different as far as you running it than that. 

7 MR. PHILLIPS: 

8 In 1995 or 1996 -­ it's right 

9 in that era there -­ we used to go into the pot room 

10 and we had to wear a badge because the government was 

11 in there watching them run some thorium alloy. When 

12 we got done we threw them in a bucket, and they threw 

13 them away. That's what happened with our badges that 

14 we wore. They were talking about -­ asking about if 

15 the metal was hazardous or anything. It goes on back 

16 -­ I don't know how far back but ever -­ ever since I 

17 was there they'd bring a Geiger counter out and said 

18 look at, you know, there's no reading, you could lay 

19 on that -­ their famous words, you could lay on that 

20 metal for a thousand years and it wouldn't hurt you. 

21 Well, they were bringing the wrong Geiger counter out. 

22 We found that out later on that it was the wrong 

23 Geiger counter, and they knew it. How -­ how strong 

24 it was no one ever knows. We -­ you know, none of us 

25 knew anything about radioactive stuff. And we'd -­

0041 

1 you know, it'd just -­ we'd get -­ we had to go by 

2 what they told us, and that's what they told us, there 

3 was none -- no hazard to it. And that went all the 
4 way through. 

5 I was 

6 the one that -- with the sales samples. I would go 

7 out and get samples and send out to the different 

8 contractors in different plants. And I remember going 

9 out into the rolling mill at one point between the -­

10 where the shears were and where the small rolling 

11 mills were. And right before you get into shipping 

12 there was a large area, and there were -- it'd be 

13 either five or six men that were dressed in powder 

14 blue suits -- in jumpsuits, and they had big stockings 

15 on their shoes -- covering their shoes. They wore a 

16 special cap. And the area was roped off, and they 

17 were making inspections of sheet metal goods. 

18 MR. PHILLIPS: Where was this and when was 

19 this? 

20 This would have been in 

21 either '57 or '58 at that period of time. 

22 MR. PHILLIPS: And where again was this? 

23 This was in the rolling 

24 mill. It's right before the -- before where the 

25 shears where they would cut the metal to the different 

0042 

1 sizes and all. And it was a roped off area. It was 

2 probably I'd say 30 by -- by 50 feet. And then but 

3 the -- they were walking around and making inspections 

4 of the -- of the metal products of sheet goods. And 

5 best I can remember the sheet, they were they were 

6 thin sheets. It was 063 or something or 81 -- 16th, 

7 eighth inch products. 

8 Did you think the metal was 

9 -- I'm not sure about those numbers that you're 

10 giving. Is this any of the thorium alloys or -­

11 Yes. Yes. 

12 How do you know that? 

13 Because it was all the 

14 material was stenciled. 

15 Okay. And and it would 

16 help us to know how it was stenciled. You mean with a 

17 number like? 

18 It was -- it was 

19 identified in full. It was run across the -- it was 

20 run through a piece of equipment. It was a roller 

21 equipment, and they usually had an oil finish on it. 

22 And it had maybe three-quarter inch stenciling that 

23 ran periodic. You have it a certain space and maybe 

24 two feet more that they would run across the sheet. 

25 ·: But what I'm trying to ask 
0043 
 

1 you is would it have like a word stenciled there or 
 

2 the number, like the alloy number? 
 

3 . Numbers. It had numbers 

4 as -- as that -- like and job numbers, lot numbers. 

5 , : Would it have the alloy? But 

6 you know, what we're talking about now are 

7 Yes. 

8 in particular HK31, HM21, 

9 HM31. 

10 I can't say absolutely 

11 sure -­

12 Okay. 

13 whether that was it or 

14 not, but I know -­

15 But those kinds of numbers? 

16 Those kinds of numbers. 

17 Okay. 

18 And -- and whenever I 

19 shipped out any materials I would go through the -- I 

20 would write a work order and have them cut me up 

21 samples like 24-by-24 or 12-by-12, whatever the sales 

22 people required which was again sent out to different 

23 contractors. 

24 And you said that the AEC were 

25 there? 

0044 

1 Now, can -- it would help 

2 Mr. Phillips -- I mean, this is a relevant time. Can 

3 you remember any of those specific contractors? 

4 Specific contractors I 

5 sent out to? 

6 Uh-huh. 

7 Yes. I have a list here 

8 of different -- different ones. And you had a list of 

9 the contractors too. And I have different ones that I 

10 remember sending out to. But I also sent out not just 

11 thorium samples. I sent out just -- just normal 

12 samples to the -­

13 Uh-huh. Okay. 

14 Especially extrusion and 

15 all. But almost all the thorium samples I sent out 

16 were sheet goods. 

17 Why don't you -- why don't 

18 you go through your list and read for us who -- who 

19 you think thorium went to. 

20 MR. PHILLIPS: Is this the list? 

21 Mallinckrodt in St. Louis. 
22 That's a different list. 
 

23 No. He only worked until '59. 
 

24 Yeah. I was only there 
 

25 for five years. I was there from '55. 
 

0045 
 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: Wait. So your list is 

2 different from this list? 

3 I've got -- I've got a couple 

4 of extra than that one. 

5 Different time periods. 

6 He's got -- he showed me 

7 that, and there's names on there that I'm not familiar 

8 with because I was I was not there. 

9 A different list. 

10 A different time period. 

11 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead 

12 and tell. 

13 It would -- Chick, it would 

14 be useful for you to get his list, right? 

15 MR. PHILLIPS: Yeah. She will -- she will 

16 get it. 

17 Those that I -- that I 

18 remember are Hughes Aircraft was one. And there was a 

19 company in Van Nuys, California,' and someone here said 

20 they thought it was Lockheed. I just remember the 

21 name Van Nuys. 

22 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

23 General Dynamics. I 

24 mentioned Mallinckrodt in St. Louis. And 

25 Martin-Marietta, I sent a lot of samples to 

0046 

1 Martin-Marietta in Georgia. 

2 And that's Martin-Marietta in 

3 Georgia? 

4 : In Georgia, yeah. 
 

5 Okay. 
 

6 Martin-Marietta. 
 

7 All right. 
 

8 Was it Glenn Martin at that 
 

9 time or Martin-Marietta? 
 

10 Pardon? 

11 Was it Glenn Martin Company or 

12 Martin-Marietta at that time? 

13 I don't -- all I -- all I 

14 remember is Martin-Marietta on it. 

15 Okay. 

16 I don't know if it was 

17 Glenn Martin. I don't remember that connotation. 
18 That was the -- the aircraft demand. Then -­


19 COURT REPORTER: Speak up please. 
 

20 I sent materials to 
 

21 Grumman. 
 

22 MR. PHILLIPS: , speak up a little 
 

23 louder. 
 

24 Grumman, Northrop, and 
 

25 Bell Aircraft -- Bell Helicopter I think. But Bell 
 

0047 
 

1 Aircraft Laboratories. And I also sent materials to 

2 Rocky Flats, Colorado. 

3 Now, this is a good time to 

4 interject this because Grady may or may not know about 

5 this. But Brandt Ulsch (phonetic) called 

6 and was asking Bill whether the comments about people 

7 sending things to Rocky Flats could have been -­

8 rather than the nuclear weapons plant Rocky Flats, 

9 could it have been the Rocky Flats arsenal. And Bill 

10 responded back to Brandt that as far as he knew it was 

11 just Rocky Flats. So I'd like you to comment, Rocky 

12 Flats -- what -- what did you understand about Rocky 

13 Flats, what that was, where it was? 

14 I didn't know. 

15 Okay. 

16 I didn't know. I just -­

17 I'm just going by the name that I remember shipping 

18 material. 

19 That's good. Okay. 

20 I don't know what 

21 MR. PHILLIPS: You don't know what town 

22 or -­

23 No. No. 

24 MR. PHILLIPS: When you say samples, tell 

25 me what you mean by samples. 

0048 

1 Samples were in most 

2 cases, especially the thorium, was the sheet goods, 

3 12-by-12 samples that I had cut up in the plant. I'd 

4 write up a work order and then -- then I would have -­

5 either I would pick them up or else if it was too much 

6 -- too many of them, a laborer would actually bring it 

7 over into the No. 2 Building where I was at. Then I 

8 would ship out. Of course, I had orders from the 

9 sales department. But that's what I did. 

10 MR. PHILLIPS: But it was -- this was 

11 finished product to be used -­

12 Yes. 

13 MR. PHILLIPS: -- or it was to be tested? 
14 It would be for us to use. 

15 Yes. 

16 MR. PHILLIPS: To be used? 

17 To be used, yes. Yes. 

18 And it had -- it also had -- and it had to have the 

19 numbers on it so they would know what it was. 

20 MR. PHILLIPS: 
 And -- and the numbers were 

21 
 

22 
 But it was identified. 

23 And if I remember right, 
 it was mostly in a -- in a 

24 deep blue stenciling. 
 

25 MR. PHILLIPS: 
 But I mean it would 

0049 
 

1 identify products like -­

2 It just had the -- had the 

3 number. It had the thorium affiliated number, and it 

4 had a -- like a lot number that it came from so it 

5 could be identified. And they kept records in the 

6 tech lab on the -- on the different lots of what was 

7 produced. 
 

8 
 Did you saw the material in 

9 your office? 
 

10 
 Pardon? 

11 
 Did you cut the material in 

12 your office? 
 

13 
 Yes. I stored it -- I 
 

14 stored it in there too. 
 Then I also had the 
 

15 extrusions I mentioned, 
 the ten-foot extrusions on 

16 everything that was -­
 that was produced other than 

17 the very large units. 
 And this was all about the time 

18 that (phonetic) 
 was coming in, but they -- him 

19 and another German engineer. And they were just 

20 putting the big -- big press together at that time. 

21 So there was scrap dust in your 

22 office in the 2 Building? 

23 Yeah. I -- I kept I 

24 stored that in my office in 2 Building. Yeah. 

25 Okay. Well, I'd just like to 

0050 

1 finish my thought hearing that then that relevant to 

2 Mr. Ulsch's question there was no such thing as the 

3 Rocky Flat arsenal. There was a Rocky Mountain 

4 arsenal. But Rocky Flats as far as I'm aware could 

5 only refer to one place, and that's the nuclear 

6 weapons plant in -- in Colorado. So -­

7 I'd like to make a 

8 comment on that stenciling. I worked in the warehouse 

9 in the rolling mill, and they had a stencil machine. 
10 And whenever the product was finished they would put 

11 the alloy, the lot number, and the gauge on it to 

12 prepare it for shipping. And sometimes they would oil 

13 it. 

14 MR. PHILLIPS: On the product itself? 

15 On the product itself 

16 when he was talking about that stenciling. 

17 MR. PHILLIPS: And that's where you got 

18 your information -­

19 Yes. 

20 MR. PHILLIPS: -- in order to package and 

21 ship it? 

22 Pardon? 

23 MR. PHILLIPS: When you crated it packaged 

24 did you do -- actually do that or it came to you in 

25 that? 

0051 

1 I did the packaging. I 

2 did the packaging, I cleaned the edges. I used what 

3 they called a deburring tool to clean the edges on the 

4 -- on the metal. 

5 MR. PHILLIPS: And your information came 

6 from what was stenciled on the product? 

7 Yes. Yes. Yes. 

8 MR. PHILLIPS: I just want to make sure 

9 that the two gentlemen that have to leave get to say 

10 what they need to say before they have to leave. 

11 I'm I worked in 

12 the shipping department. 

13 MR. PHILLIPS: Speak up a little. 

14 I'm I worked in 

15 the shipping department in extrusion. We packed the 

16 metal that was run on the presses. The scrap, the 

17 chips, everything, we shipped it out. But I remember 

18 we shipped it to Los Alamos. I don't remember Rocky 

19 Flats. I remember Los Alamos. We packaged the 

20 extrusions in cardboard boxes, put red tags every 

21 three or four feet in the box, put red tags on the 

22 outside of the box before it got shipped. 

23 MR. PHILLIPS: What -- what did the red 

24 tags say? 

25 Do not get unexposed film 

0052 

1 within five feet of this material. 
 

2 When was that, ? 
 

3 That was in the '70s. 
 

4 In the '70s. 
 

5 When they brought this 
 
6 material in at 9 Press I was pumping on the billet saw 

7 in 1975. And I saw the metal sitting in on a skid, 

8 and it had red tags on it. And I walked over, and I 

9 saw what it -- it said don't get unexposed film within 

10 five feet of this material. Well, I went charging in 

11 the office, and I told the head of the department we 

12 were not going to touch that material, it was 

13 radioactive. He assured me that the president had 

14 already been involved, they had brought a man in with 

15 a Geiger counter, checked the material, and the 

16 material was safe. I called my president, and he told 

17 me the same thing. I did not know they used the wrong 

18 Geiger counter. 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: And this was shipping from 

20 extrusion. Is that what you said? 

21 It's the extrusion department. 

22 I was on the billet saw at the time. About two -- a 

23 week or two later I got bumped back down in shipping, 

24 and that's when I got to pack all this including the 

25 scrap. Everything had to be packed up. 

0053 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: And how was the material 
 

2 identified that you shipped? 
 

3 .I do not remember the stencil 
 

4 that was on it. I can't remember what alloy the 
 

5 stencil was. 
 

6 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you. 
 

7 But I know that we've shipped 
 

8 HM21, HM31. 
 

9 It was HK. 
 

10 HK. 

11 HK 31. 

12 Well, HK, yeah. 

13 Now, just to clarify, there 

14 was an HK31? 

15 Yes. 

16 And there was an HM31 and 

17 they were both thorium alloys. Okay. All right. 

18 , can I get you to clarify something 

19 for me. 

20 Sure. 

21 This is important. You had 

22 given us an affidavit once before. 

23 Yes. 

24 And -- and in that affidavit 

25 which I'm looking at right now you said you were 

0054 

1 employed at Dow from '59 to You worked in 
2 shipping and extrusion as a packer, and as a packer I 

3 packed everything off of the presses for shipment to 

4 customers. In 1957 I was working on the billet press 

5 and saw two skids of metal with red tags set next to 

6 the No. 9 press. We were told not to come within five 

7 feet of this metal. Thorium was being extruded from 

8 at least 1915 through the late 1980s. So that would 

9 be one thing. Today does that still seem right that 

10 -- that the thorium extrusions continued on through 
 

11 the 1980s? 
 

12 Yes. 
 

13 Okay. And the other thing 
 

14 you said then was -­


15 Especially HM21 and HM31. 
 

16 Uh-huh. 
 

17 Especially those alloys. 
 

18 Kept on being produced? 
 

19 Yes. 
 

20 Okay. Because that's real 
 

21 important as to when the production period for thorium 
 

22 stopped and when the residual period kicked in which 
 

23 would be after the active production stopped. 
 

24 Also, one of our main trucking 
 

25 companies was Maverick. 
 

0055 
 

1 Okay. 

2 They would come in, drop -­

3 drop their trailers or stay with the trailers. We'd 

4 load them, they'd take them back to the yard. Most of 

5 the time they would unload the trailers onto other 

6 trailers, and they would haul the material. 

7 Okay. 

8 But there were a lot of times 

9 when Maverick hauled the material all the way 

10 themselves. 

11 Then the other thing you said 

12 back in that affidavit time was that you -- then you 

13 were told that the metal was being shipped to Rocky 

14 Flats. And I believe in May at the Ponderosa meeting 

15 you told and I that you also thought 

16 besides Los Alamos that some thorium alloy was shipped 

17 to Oak Ridge. Is that still something you remember or 

18 -- it's okay if it's not. I -- that's what I 

19 understood you to say at the Ponderosa meeting. So 

20 that's okay. So -- so you -- it sounds like you 

21 remember most being sent to Los Alamos. 

22 That's the one because I made 

23 the remark they're probably going to make atom bombs 
24 out of it -­


25 .: Okay. 
 

0056 
 

1 -- which was a bad joke. 

2 Well, it could be true too. 

3 MR. PHILLIPS: Give me that time frame 

4 again when you remember that this happened. 

5 1975 is when I first noticed 

6 the metal. And it's before it was extruded. 

7 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

8 Now, it may have been -- they 

9 may have been running it before then. I do not know. 

10 But I don't -- but HM21 and HM31 they were running 

11 before 1975. But now, this stuff that they brought in 

12 on this skid I never seen anything like that before. 

13 MR. PHILLIPS: Is it HM.or HK31? HM31? 

14 The ones I remember was HM21 

15 and HM31. Now, HK31, it -- it may have been run too, 

16 but I -- I don't remember it. 

17 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

18 Well, the table that I'm. 

19 reading from, Chick, is a -- is from Dow headquarters, 

20 and it's labeled chemical composition of magnesium 

21 mill products. So it wasn't clear to me whether that 

22 document referred to throughout the Dow Chemical 

23 plants. I assume it was. But anyway, that table 

24 mentions all three, HK31A, HM21A, HM31A as being the 

25 primary thorium alloys. 

0057 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: Yeah. The H is the 
 

2 thorium. 
 

3 Correct. 
 

4 MR. PHILLIPS: So it's going to say H. 
 

5 Uh-huh. Correct. 
 

6 MR. CALHOUN: Can I ask a question here. 
 

7 This is Grady Calhoun. On these -- these billets I'm 
 

8 just a little confused here. Were these thorium 
 

9 alloyed billets that were extruded that were red 
 

10 tagged, or were they -- does anyone know? 

11 They were on a skid. It was 

12 already it was already -- it was banded up and 

13 brought in and set by the press. It was already in 

14 this -- in the skid. 

15 MR. CALHOUN: I'm just wondering if it was 

16 uranium. 

17 The only thing I know is it 

18 had these red tags on it. 

19 MR. CALHOUN: Okay. So we're not sure 
20 that it was thorium metal billets that were being 

21 extruded. It was -- okay. 

22 What press? 

23 Nine. 

24 Well, Grady, I've got to -­

25 I've got to interject though, the contract for uranium 

0058 

1 from Mallinckrodt uranium division was 1957 to '60. 

2 So if there were uranium there in 1975, that would be 

3 a completely new thing. 

4 MR. CALHOUN: Yeah. I'm just -- I'm just 

5 asking the question. 

6 No. No. No. No. I think 

7 that's a legitimate question. But that does not fit 

8 with the Mallinckrodt uranium contract period at all. 

9 MR. CALHOUN: But it sounds like we're not 

10 sure that that was thorium or uranium at this point. 

11 That's -- that I 

12 MR. CALHOUN: Okay. You guys actually 

13 made the alloy there. 

14 Right. Uh-huh. 

15 MR. CALHOUN: So you wouldn't have been 

16 shipped alloy to extrude. 

17 It happened several times. 

18 That was brought in from 

19 outside of the 

20 That was pellets there, and I 

21 worked on it. 

22 MR. CALHOUN: Okay. 

23 The uranium that came into 

24 that plant that I worked on and extruded it on 7 Press 

25 was pellets. They looked like little BBs. They were 

0059 

1 in a keg about that high, about that big around. It 

2 was heavy as lead. 

3 MR. PHILLIPS: Now, we're talking about 

4 uranium? 

5 Uranium. 

6 MR. PHILLIPS: And when? That was -­

7 I -- I worked on that in the 

8 middle of 1959, it was the summer, like June and July 

9 in 1959. So that was pellets, and it looked like 

10 little BBs. And we -- we had to scoop them up, put 

11 them in an air tank, then they blowed them into the 

12 press container. They compressed them against a steel 

13 plate and they -- you kept putting them pellets in 

14 until you formed a billet. Then they would then 

15 extrude it on out. And so that's how that worked, and 
16 I -­ I helped on that job. 

17 MR. PHILLIPS: So you actually worked on 

18 the uranium extrusion? 

19 I worked on that. Yes, I 

20 sure did. 

21 .. Chick, I'd like to make a 

22 comment. I mean, I -­ I think it's important for you 

23 and I think it's extremely important for NIOSH to 

24 understand that -­ and to put this on the record that, 

25 you know, that's a different story than the official 

0060 

1 story of what was sent over from Mallinckrodt. 

2 Absolutely. 

3 There is not a single word in 

4 any document that I have ever seen from the Department 

5 of Energy, from the facility description, from any 

6 document that pellets of uranium were sent over from 

7 Mallinckrodt. 

8 That's correct. 

9 So I mean, you know, this has 

10 got to -­ this is a matter of I want to call it 

11 scholarship and investigation and doing a thorough job 

12 of finding out what was going on. And so that's a 

13 very important observation. 

14 You know, at the time I knew 

15 it was radioactive because it was on the -­ the 

16 sticker was on the kegs, you know. And I complained 

17 to the foreman about it as everybody did, and they 

18 said oh, that won't hurt you. I found out later on 

19 that it was uranium. 

20 Okay. 

21 I -­ I didn't know it at the 

22 time. I knew it was radioactive. I found out later 

23 they were uranium pellets. 

24 All right. 

25 MR. PHILLIPS: How did you find out? 

0061 

1 I think was 

2 telling me, but I'm not sure. But I thought -- I 

3 thought you were telling -- when we were talking about 

4 it a long time ago. 

5 I don't know about the 

6 pellets. 

7 Was that uranium pellets? 

8 That was thorium. 

9 Oh, I'm sorry. I made a 

10 mistake. That was thorium pellets. 

11 I can comment on pellets. 
12 Now, I didn't see it firsthand, but I was told by 

13 heavy press operators, (phonetic) and 

14 (phonetic) I believe that they put a blank 

15 die in the press and they dumped pellets into the 

16 container and put pressure on them and turned them 

17 into a solid instead of pellets. So that I -- I 

18 assume this is what you're referring to. 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: This -- this would be 

20 We -- we blew them in where I 

21 was at. And then me and worked on them on 6 

22 Press where they blowed them in, you and me. 

23 Yeah. 

24 And you know, it seemed like 

25 every extrusion was a rod. 

0062 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: But let's make sure though, 
 

2 we are talking about thorium; is that correct? 
 

3 As far as I know it was 
 

4 thorium. 
 

5 Yeah. 
 

6 I can't say because like I 
 

7 said it -- it wasn't firsthand. This was told to me. 
 

8 So this was pure thorium 
 

9 billets you guys were making? 
 

10 Well, they were thorium 

11 pellets, and they compressed them against a steel 

12 plate held up by the crane inside the press container, 

13 you know. Then after they were compressed then they'd 

14 -- they'd open it up, take the steel plate out, seal 

15 everything back up and extrude it through the die 

16 then. 

17 And it made a rod? 

18 It made a rod. 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: Was it -­

20 So you were making pure thorium 

21 rods instead of alloying thorium and magnesium? 

22 That's -- that's the way I 

23 understand it. 

24 MR. PHILLIPS: , did you have 

25 something? 

0063 

1 Going back to what Grady said, 

2 we had a lot of stuff that came in the plant that we 

3 didn't know what it was. You know, they wouldn't tell 

4 us. And a lot of it was -- they'd say oh, it's 

5 special alloy, and that's -- that's all the 

6 information we could get. But you know, the special 

7 alloys -- a lot of them had the little red stickers on 
8 it, you know, hazardous and that. 

9 , extrusion. 

10 Like said, a lot of these -- a lot of this metal 

11 that was shipped in there was stored out in No. 2 

12 Building, and it would come in as a special alloy or 

1.3 an experimental alloy. And we never did really 

14 question too much about it. And we didn't even know a 

15 lot of this stuff had thorium in it until after we 

16 excluded it. We extruded that stuff on the 7 Press 

17 and the heavy press. And Martin-Marietta was a big, 

18 big part of that. A lot of that stuff went to 

19 Martin-Marietta because I talked to those individuals 

20 several times off and on. 

21 And I can remember one day particularly. 

22 It was a Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the plant was 

23 shutting down at midnight and the guys from 

24 Martin-Marietta had to get back home, otherwise they 

25 was going to miss their flight. And that was in 

0064 

1 Georgia I believe -- no, the head guy was in another 

2 -- I think he was in one of the Carolinas. But 

3 anyway, we couldn't get our container up to 

4 temperature on the heavy press, and they would not 

5 extrude that even being one or two degrees off on that 

6 container. So they put me fully in charge of getting 

7 that container up to temperature and then we extruded 

8 that night. We even had to stay after midnight that 

9 night to finish that product. 

10 MR. PHILLIPS: Now, when -- when would 

11 this have been, in the '90s? 

12 It was in the '90s, yes. But 

13 anyway, after I got it extruded I was supposed to call 

14 him from my home phone because he was in flight on his 

15 way home when I left the plant. So when I got home I 

16 called him from my home phone to let him know that we 

17 got the job done for him. 

18 MR. PHILLIPS: Did you have something, 

19 ? 

20 Okay. Are we continuing on 

21 through? 

22 MR. PHILLIPS: Just one. Do you know if 

23 -- is -- if that was thorium metal or is it thorium 

24 alloyed metal. 

25 Well, it was I'm not 

0065 

1 really sure. 
 

2 MR. PHILLIPS: It was pellets? 
 

3 It was pellets. 
 
4 If it came straight out of the 

5 kegs, it must have been metal. 
 

6 Yeah. It -- it was -- it was 
 

7 metal, yes. 
 

8 Yeah. You seen the kegs too. 
 

9 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I 
 

10 

11 MR. PHILLIPS: So you believe it to be 

12 thorium metal? 

13 .. Oh, yeah. 

14 I'd like to make one more -- I 

15 get to go in the plant every now and then. Here about 

16 a month or two ago I called up. I didn't get 

17 ahold of him, but he called back later. I was going 

18 into the plant delivering auto parts. And there's a 

19 road by the alloy department between the alloy 

20 department and the heavy press department. There's a 

21 guy standing in that road with what looked like to be 

22 a surveyor's thing like he was looking through this. 

23 And he followed me. He watched me all the way through 

24 until I went to the side of the building there by the 

25 heavy press where there's an office. He watched me 

0066 

1 all the way. And when I got out of the truck he was 

2 watching me. And I'm thinking why -- what in the 

3 world's he watching me for. So I went in there, 

4 delivered the parts, got back in my truck. He's 

5 watching me again. And I go around and I get over in 

6 back of him. And he's got a big truck there with a 

7 bunch of equipment in it. And there was another guy 

8 standing over by the heavy press building, and on the 

9 back of his shirt he had DEA in yellow letters. Now, 

10 whether that meant anything or not, I do not know. 

11 What that guy was doing over there by the heavy press 

12 building I could not tell what he was doing because he 

13 was bent over. 

14 MR. PHILLIPS: When was this? 

15 About a month or two ago. 

16 Isn't the DEA the Department 

17 of Energy? 

18 MR. PHILLIPS: The DOE is the only 

19 department. 

20 This was DEA. I made sure 

21 that I got the letters. 

22 I've read that in the papers. 

23 MR. PHILLIPS: We may not want to go 

24 there. We got enough unknown substances. 

25 And their truck was unmarked. 
0067 

1 I looked for markings on the truck, but there was no 

2 markings on the truck. 

3 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

4 Chick, Just 

5 one observations from conversation and 

6 I thought it went over kind of lightly. But he did 

7 mention the only people wearing radiation badges were 

8 the people that operated the x-ray device, the 

9 nondestructive testing device which I think we've 

10 heard about. And that time frame I think 

11 can correct me, but I also thought I heard that there 

12 were samples taken and then sent to this x-ray device. 

13 And this x-ray device was at a various site on the 

14 plant. So whatever was being sent over to be x-rayed 

15 for nondestructive testing apparently had across the 

16 plant in various areas. If there's anybody that knows 

17 anything about this material, you were looking at the 

18 material moving throughout the plant, were there -­

19 and I think you described it as slices sometimes. And 

20 I heard somebody say billets were cut off. 

21 Well, yes. But these were 

22 special slices, and this was forging stock. And they 

23 made forging stock for airplane wheels -- for forging 

24 airplane wheels out of them until the airplanes got so 

25 heavy that the forging -- forgings would not stand it 

0068 

1 any more. 

2 What material was that? 

3 It was -- it could be AZ31B 

4 or different alloys. But it was -- in one part they 

5 would take the samples, but the sample would have to 

6 go through the ovens with -- with the billets. And 

7 then after that then they took them to make sure that 

8 there were no cracks in there, that they would forge 

9 well. They were never broken or anything like that. 

10 Well, there was a cinder 

11 block building there in in alloy where they had the 

12 x-ray equipment. 

13 So there definitely was a 

14 building for x-ray equipment? 

15 And they did take those 

16 slices in there that he's talking about and x-ray them 

17 in a later period of time, but it was aluminum. We 

18 shipped forging stock if we actually was worried about 

19 the cracks. And we actually brought them over to 

20 extrusion and put them in caustic and then in nitrate. 

21 Now, I don't know what the alloys were, but that was 
22 aluminum. 

23 That was aluminum going to 

24 the nondestructive testing? 

25 That was aluminum. That was 

0069 

1 aluminum. They -- they also -- and the x-ray room was 

2 in the same building as the casting department. Now, 

3 when the -- when the aluminum units come in down there 

4 it set back in one corner and it had signs on it, 

5 special entry only or something like this -- to this 

6 effect; that only the persons operating it were the 

7 persons that were supposed to be in there. And it was 

8 -- they carried Siemens badges, and as you know 

9 Siemens was into -­

10 MR. PHILLIPS: I think some of that 

11 information's available on the readings on those 

12 badges. 

13 Huh-uh. 

14 No. 

15 MR. PHILLIPS: It's not? 

16 No. I'd like to put that on 

17 the record that there is zero -­

18 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

19 -- zero film badge monitoring 

20 available for any time at the Dow Madison plant. 

21 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. I'll stand corrected 

22 until -­

23 No. I'm not saying 

24 MR. PHILLIPS: I'm working on three sites. 

25 No, Chick. As far as we -­

0070 

1 as far as we are aware -­

2 I have one comment on the film 

3 badge and it may not be important. But in 1955 in the 

4 rolling mill I was an end shear operator on a ten-foot 

5 or a 12-foot shear. And I was told by the foreman 

6 that they had a special batch of metal they was 

7 wanting to see if they could cut it on this ten-foot 

8 shear. 

9 This metal came in a barrel and it had -­

10 with a special guard that brought it in; not a guard 

11 from our plant but a guard from Rocky Flats. This 

12 metal came from Rocky Flats I was told. They dressed 

13 me in protective gear from head to foot and hung a 

14 badge on me. And this metal was in about a -- in 

15 pieces about a foot in length and so thick, and it 

16 weighed extremely heavy for this piece of metal. I 

17 couldn't believe how heavy it was. We put that on 
18 that end shear, I did. And I asked them about the 

19 film badge, and they hung a film badge on me. And the 

20 safety director at that time was a fellow by the name 

21 of (phonetic). And he says, •,that don't 

22 mean anything. He said we're just trying to be extra 

23 cautious. I asked him what the metal was, and he said 

24 he didn't know himself. And that's about all the 

25 answers I got out of it. 

0071 

1 And I put it on that sheer, and when I 

2 tripped the shear it broke pieces of the blade like 

3 this long. You know, we're talking about a big blade. 

4 They tried that two or three times and tore up the 

5 blades. And then they decided they'd try it on the 

6 big shear. And they tried it on the big shear and it 

7 broke it also, broke it in pieces. It couldn't cut 

8 it. What little dust and chips there was that come 

9 off of that I swept up and put it in a pan. And they 

10 put that in that barrel. And I happened to talk to 

11 the fellow who they said was a guard, and I asked him 

12 if there was any danger. And he says I can tell you 

13 this, it's radioactive. And he says I come with it, 

14 I'm guarding it, and I'm going to take it back. And 

15 that was that. 

16 MR. PHILLIPS: Do you know when that was? 

17 Do I know what? 

18 MR. PHILLIPS: When, the time. 

19 It was approximately 1955. It 

20 could have been in early '56, but no later than that. 

21 Because I spent almost all my time on the mill, but it 

22 just so happened I was an end shear operator at that 

23 point in time. 

24 MR. PHILLIPS: And you were told it was 

25 from Rocky Flats? 

0072 

1 . I was told it was from Rocky 

2 Flats. There was no markings on the barrel. There 

3 was no markings on the metal. And it was a -- really 

4 a rough looking metal. I hadn't seen anything like 

5 it. 

6 I was a roller on the 

7 finishing mill. And they had five people come in from 

8 Rocky Flats, each one had their own things. And they 

9 put paper all around and they tore up the -- on the 

10 mill. And they gave us coveralls and a cap and -- for 

11 shoes. And so we -- we -- I went and I -- we made 

12 different reductions on it. We made different 

13 reductions on this. I did this whenever they 
14 requested me. 

15 So anyway, I asked them what -- what this 

16 metal was, and they just said it was an experiment and 

17 they wouldn't tell me what it was. So whenever we got 

18 done with it -- well, as a matter of fact, we took 

19 such a great reduction that it -- it hurt one employee 

20 and it -- it had hit him and he bled. 

21 And they took him to the hospital and they 

22 put him in the isolation room. And I went to see him, 

23 and I couldn't see him just through the window. And 

24 when we got done with this experiment, well, we washed 

25 the whole mill down. And they had a Geiger counter 

0073 

1 and I knew the -- what a Geiger counter was. And it 

2 took us about two hours to wash all that off until it 

3 was safe. But I didn't have no badges or anything. 

4 So when they got done they wrapped up all 

5 the paper. They wrapped -- they took all our clothes 

6 and everything and took them back to Rocky Flats. 

7 MR. PHILLIPS: And when was this? 

8 It was in 1955. 

9 MR. PHILLIPS: Now, was that -- is this 

10 are these two related? 

11 Well, it might be. I 

12 didn't know about that. 

13 I didn't know about this 

14 thing. 

15 I don't know about that 

16 part, but it could have been. I don't know. But I 

17 was a roller on that mill from '54 and '55, and these 

18 five technicians came in from Rocky Flats. 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: And they -- it wasn't 

20 disclosed to you what the material was? 

21 Yeah. Well, it -- yeah. 

22 They wouldn't disclose what it was. They just said 

2.3 it's an experiment and that's all they -­ that's all 

24 they told me. 

25 Well, Chick, I just need to 

0074 

1 put it on the record again to make it complete that in 

2 1955 Dow Chemical was the prime contractor at Rocky 

3 Flats. And so to me the fact that a -- that one part 

4 of Dow would send some special projects to Dow 

5 Madison; number one, is not so surprising; and number 

6 two, could -- could be done, you know, apart from the 

7 normal work order, purchasing order, invoicing 

8 technique. 

9 So one of the things I think we're facing 
10 here and is really, really difficult is that without 

11 total cooperation by everybody at Rocky Flats, DOE, 

12 NIOSH, all the people with Q clearances that can look 

13 at that material a lot of these special projects could 

14 have been done secretly and be classified and be 

15 buried somewhere in the ledger books and the log 

16 books. So I just have to stress that this kind of 

17 testimony is extremely important, and we're going to 

18 insist that it be paid attention to and basically 

19 accepted as facts absent evidence to the contrary. 

20 That's all I can say. So -­

21 MR. PHILLIPS: So noted. 

22 -- I think it's real 

23 important. 

24 MR. PHILLIPS: I'm going to have to take a 

25 break here in a minute. I don't know about the rest 

0075 

1 of you. But what I want to make sure is the two 

2 gentlemen who have to leave -- before we take the 

3 break is there anything else that you want to add, 

4 need to add? 

5 The only that I guess that 

6 I -- I need to add is I worked on the aluminum casting 

7 unit. 

8 MR. PHILLIPS: Speak up a little bit 

9 please. 

10 And until I come to this 

11 meeting I didn't know that beryllium was a problem. 

12 When I was at the aluminum casting unit I worried 

13 about the chlorine because we had to purify the 

14 aluminum with chlorine. I worried about that, but I 

15 never -- never knew there was a problem with 

16 beryllium. And I know right now that I'm going to a 

17 lung specialist for scar tissue that's building up in 

18 my lungs continuously. And that's possibly from the 

19 beryllium, I don't know. 

20 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you. 

21 You said something about the 

22 records. They had their records stored in the 

23 basement, and it got so full that they had to store 

24 them up on the third floor of No. 1 Building. Because 

25 I was taken up there one day and showed all the 

0076 

1 records they had up there. 
 

2 COURT REPORTER: Number what building did 
 

3 you say? 
 

4 Number 1 Building. 
 

5 MR. PHILLIPS: You're speaking of the Dow 
 
6 era now; is that correct? 
 

7 The company records that they 
 

8 kept. 
 

9 When Dow sold out to 
 

10 Phelps-Dodge or sold the plant Dow kept all kind of 

11 records. And when Phelps-Dodge come in they was a 

12 company that didn't like records so they started 

13 getting rid of a whole bunch of the records. Now, how 

14 many of the records were destroyed that would make 

lS evidence today I will -- I have no idea. But I know 

16 it hurt us in doing our job when they started getting 

17 rid of the records. And Phelps-Dodge was only down 

18 there about a year and a half. When they sold out to 

19 -- well, they brought in -- Consolidated Aluminum 

20 became a partner with them and then eventually took 

21 the plant over. 

22 Now, he's talking about in the beginning 

23 in 'SS Dow had Madison and they had a rolling mill, 

24 they had an extrusion department. If they wanted to 

2S get something done from another plant, they would be 

0077 

1 bringing that there to have it done there because they 

2 didn't have any other equipment to do it on. When I 

3 first went over to the rolling mill they were learning 

4 how to -- they were trying to learn to roll sheets, 

s and they would send that some -- a thickness of sheet 

6 and have it -- or a bar to Pennsylvania in one of the 

7 steel mills to have them roll it down to where we 

8 could finish rolling it on a -- on a mill in there. 

9 They were doing anything they could at the time to 

10 advance magnesium. So when -- when you talk about 

11 bringing the stuff in they didn't have any place else 

12 to do it. So we had no idea what it was. Like 

13 like they say, the alloy wasn't determined. 

14 MR. PHILLIPS: 

lS Yes. I was a plant service 

16 attendant, and I had access to the whole plant even 

17 also No. 1 Building. And I know for a fact that they 

18 kept them records up on the third floor. 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: All right. Let's take a 

20 break. And I don't know what -- does anybody know 

21 about the lunch arrangements? 

22 I think said that 

23 somewhere about 12:30 they'd be -- they would bring in 

24 lunch for everybody, 

2S MR. PHILLIPS: All right, Why don't -- is 

0078 

1 a ten minute break enough? I know we only got two 
2 restrooms. But let's -- let's try to be back at ten 

3 of and then we'll continue until lunch. Is 

4 that agreeable? 

5 That sounds great. That's 

6 good. 

7 

8 (Whereupon, a lunch recess was taken.) 

9 

10 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. If we could, let's 

11 -- let's try to get started again. I was just 

12 throwing up here our objectives, our purpose of the 

13 meeting again and trying to see where we were. And I 

14 think, you know, basically we're -- we're working our 

15 way through understanding this. And so I think we've 

16 touched on most of these I guess except for one. And 

17 if -- if you want to continue along the lines we're 

18 going, we can. But one thing I wanted to get a little 

19 better understanding, if anybody had any, what 

20 knowledge we had of the uranium extrusion and the rod 

21 straightening processes that occurred from '57 to '60. 

22 But I'm not sure that we're through with kind of where 

23 we started this. What's your sense? You got -- you 

24 want to continue along the lines where we're going and 

25 then we'll -- we'll just pick it up as we go? I mean, 

0079 

1 it's all right with me. 

2 I want to stay with what we 

3 was on if we could just for a minute. 

4 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. That's -- that's 

5 fine with me. You want to start? 

6 ·: Yeah. 

7 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

8 Okay. In 1960 I hired in, and 

9 we was still making HM31 and HM21 in those. And we 

10 was still running that all the way up to the beginning 

11 of the '80s and maybe into the '90s. I don't know 

12 about the '90s. But that had zirconium and beryllium 

13 again, and it also had the radioactive metal in it, 

14 and they was in little bitty nuggets like. And that 

15 was melted in to every pot. Like he said they was 

16 6,000 pound pots. And we melted that into every 

17 furnace that we cast. 

18 MR. PHILLIPS: Wait. I'm sorry. I missed 

19 that. We did -- what did you melt into all of it, the 

20 thorium? 

21 The thorium ingots or the 

22 nuggets. And it was made into every pot that we used. 

23 And it was dumped on the floor really and shoveled 
24 into a basket and then put into a pot that was at 

25 least 1,300 degrees to melt it real quick. And if it 

0080 

l didn't melt real quick, it would just be in a solid 

2 ball. And that's the kind of stuff that'd get throwed 

3 away. 

4 And they had a dump on the outside of the 

5 casting department that they dumped all the thorium 

6 sludge and metal that was a waste. And it was dumped 

7 out there in a area of about maybe six, seven acres 

8 out there, and that pile was pretty high. And once a 

9 year they would send a crew out there to go through 

10 and dig it up and dig the metal out of it. And they 

11 would bring it back in and remelt it. 

12 And there when they stored this zirconium 

13 and that and the beryllium and the thorium nuggets was 

14 just in a cage. It -- it wasn't in a room or 

15 anything. It was just in a cage in the department. 

16 And that's -- there was no -- and they had signs up 

17 that said radioactive. And that cage, it was still 

18 there back in the '90s. 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: You're speaking of the cage 

20 where you stored the thorium metal before you used it 

21 to alloy; is that correct? 

22 Yeah. 

23 MR. PHILLIPS: And that was in Building 7? 

24 It was in the cast -- is that 

25 7? Yeah. It was in the casting department at the 

0081 

1 very end, and they had a wire cage around it -­

2 MR. PHILLIPS: Right. 

3 -- where just anybody 6ouldn't 

4 go in there, but everybody did to get the alloy 

5 material to put on the unit. But that stuff was used 

6 and stored there. 

7 MR. PHILLIPS: How -­ explain to me -­ you 

8 said -­ and I saw this in the affidavits and in the -­

9 the testimony at the workers' meeting. When you say 

10 dig the metal out of it, explain to me what -­ what 

11 digging the metal out of it means. 

12 Okay. On the casting pots, 

13 them 6,000 pound pots we had 6,000 pounds of metal in 

14 it. They had a machine that would go down -­ it had a 

15 bucket on it. And you'd go down to the bottom of that 

16 pot and you'd pick up this hot liquid sludge and we'd 

17 dump it in a container. And when it got hard you'd 

18 dump it on the floor, put it in a box, and they'd take 

19 it outside and dump in this dump area. 
20 MR. PHILLIPS: You mean literally dump on 

21 the floor? 

22 Yes. 

23 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

24 And it would be dumped out 

25 there. And after about a year with the rain and that 

0082 

1 it would make it real soft, and you could pick -- go 

2 in with a Bobcat and pick it up and dump and the metal 

3 would separate from that dross and the sludge. And 

4 they did this for years out there. 

5 Every year they'd send somebody out there. 

6 And that was usually a volunteer job because it was 

7 not an everyday job. And they had signs up all the 

8 way around this field that said radioactive metal. 

·9 And then in the '90s I think they cleaned that up. 

10 And they sent it out west somewhere, and then they 

11 concreted over that whole pad. 

12 And as far as beryllium, we used that on 

13 everything we had down there. There was only like two 

14 or three alloys that we did not use beryllium. And on 

15 that radioactive metal after it was stored for so long 

16 they had so much there they had to get rid of it. So 

17 what they started doing -- like they had billets and 

18 slabs that was HM21, 31 -- they cut them up in like 

19 500 pound pieces, and we just used it in different 

20 alloys to make the metals that wasn't even thorium 

21 metal. But we used the thorium, it was used in 

22 different alloys. And that's the way they got rid of 

23 it. 

24 MR. PHILLIPS: So the alloy would be 

25 marked bla-bla with a number which wouldn't indicate 

0083 

1 it had thorium in it, but it actually had thorium in 

2 it? 

3 Right. If it was HM21 and 

4 when they decided to get rid of this stuff they'd send 

5 it out and a saw operator would cut it up in small 

6 pieces. And like if we was using like AZ21 or 31 or 

7 up on the aluminum unit they'd be using 5083 or a 

8 different alloy, we'd use that to alloy with. And 

9 when you throw a piece of that into a 70,000 pound 

10 furnace it wouldn't show up on on the analysis of 

11 your tickets. And that's the way they got rid of that 

12 stuff. 

13 Can I add to that? The 

14 company used it in 172 alloy, didn't they? Because 

15 that -- that was a catch-all alloy Dow had, just throw 
16 anything in it. 
 

17 When they went to get rid of 
 

18 that they had so much of it in storage back there, 
 

19 they'd just cut it up and we used on everything you 
 

20 can dump it in. And it went out as everything. 
 

21 On that scrap, scrap usually 
 

22 comes back from the rolling mill -- I'm 
 

23 -- and they'd mark it with a marking pen HM21 or HK31 
 

24 and throw it in the scrap area there. That's where 
 

25 they stored this stuff. That's where it was stored 
 

0084 
 

1 at. And then at times when we running the AZ31B or ZK 

2 or something they'd bring it in and we'd charge it in 

3 the inpots to get rid of it even though it was thorium 

4 metal. On AZ31B which is three percent aluminum and 

5 one percent zinc we would throw it in the inpots to 

6 make the inpot metal. So they used that thorium. 

7 They'd keep marking normal just with a marking pen on 

8 there and it just says, you know, HM21 or HK31 and 

9 we'd charge it back in to get rid of it. That's one 

10 way to get rid of the metal. 

11 How did they pass -- you 

12 -- you would send samples out to the lab to have a 

13 spectrogram done on them. How did they -- this other 

14 alloy -­

15 There was enough pure mag in 

16 the pot to cut the thorium analysis out of it. 

17 And they didn't read that. On 

18 AZ31B or 5083 it wasn't read through it. When they 

19 read the sample it didn't show up because they wasn't 

20 shooting for that. 

21 : How about AZ61A? 
 

22 AZ61A? 
 

23 Yeah. Because we extruded 
 

24 a -- a rod over on the 7 Press that they used for the 
 

25 shells. 
 

0085 
 

1 That's six percent zinc and 

2 one percent -- or six percent aluminum and one percent 

3 zinc. Yeah, AZ61. Well, we used -- we used beryllium 

4 in that. 

5 Beryllium, huh? 

6 On a pumpover from the other 

7 pots, 23 and 24 we had a long ladle and we'd hold it 

8 under the pumpover there and add three or four notches 

9 of beryllium on each pumpover there. We'd get an 

10 analysis on the beryllium on that, wouldn't we? 

11 Yeah. It's in there. But 
12 you're talking about the way we -- we hid it -- they 

13 hid it to get rid of that thorium stuff because in the 

14 sample when they read the machine and they had little 

15 pieces of that AZ31B or ZK something it was a real 

16 analysis. So if it had something strange in, it 

17 didn't pick it up. It didn't read that part. 

18 So there's -- what you're 

19 saying there's a possibility anything that went 

20 through the plant could have had thorium in it. 

21 It did. You're right, it did. 

22 That's how you get rid of 

23 it. 

24 Because when they started 

25 throwing this into the aluminum and then when they cut 

0086 

1 the aluminum and ran it in the mill and that that 

2 scrap would come back. That had beryllium. They used 

3 that aluminum in the pot room to alloy the mag with 

4 it. So that had beryllium in it, but it wasn't 

5 showing up because the samples wasn't made to show up. 

6 And that's how all that stuff -- that stuff went 

7 through everything in that plant. 

8 Every element. 

9 Anyway, there's thorium in 

10 that because they stored it there. And when they 

11 decided to get rid of it -- and that's like the stuff 

12 from outside that was pure HM21 and 31 -- they brought 

13 that back in, melted in, and used it in everything 

14 even though that was the thorium scrap. 

15 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. Thank you. 

16 you had 

17 On the spectrograph I don't 

18 see how they could have got rid of it because that 

19 spectrograph is a colored illustration. The colors 

20 determine what the alloys and everything are. They 

21 had to be using something to leach it out because if 

22 that -- if that spectrograph does not come out, then 

23 the colors from burning at that high temperature does 

24 not come out, then it does not pass. So they're 

25 having to use -- they were having to use something to 

0087 

1 leach it out in the -­

2 MR. PHILLIPS: 

3 If if you're making a pot 

4 of soup and you dump a whole can of salt in there, you 

5 can taste it. But if you sprinkle a little bit, you 

6 can't even taste the salt. That's the same thing this 

7 was doing on this metal. They -- they throw it in in 
8 bits and pieces and got rid of it without it showing 

9 up. 

10 And if it did show up on our 

11 sample, it wouldn't be on there. They didn't put it 

12 on there. 

13 When you pure a cell mag 

14 magnesium cell mag would cut that because if the pot 

15 was maybe three percent pure mag, then you'd cut that 

16 thorium out, you wouldn't see it. You wouldn't see it 

17 on analysis at all. 

18 But you was dumping into 

19 70,000 pounds. 

20 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

21 I remember on some of the 

22 extrusion paperwork when I worked on the presses they 

23 were actually putting magnesium thorium on the 

24 paperwork. I've seen that several times. 

25 MR. PHILLIPS: I'm sorry. Say that again. 

0088 

1 I missed I missed something. Say that again 

2 please. 

3 When I worked on the presses 

4 there was different times that they'd have it on the 

5 paperwork as magnesium thorium, and then it had the 

6 alloy number. And I wished I'd have kept a -- kept 

7 one of them, but I never knew it would all come to 

8 this. 

9 mentioned that they put 

10 the samples through the spectrograph and so forth. 

11 But you know, in my 25 years as a supervisor after 

12 sending our samples out to the lab I can't recall one 

13 magnesium job that ever failed props. Can you, ? 

14 No. Not -- not after it. 

15 COURT REPORTER: Failed what? 

16 Failed proprieties. 

17 MR. PHILLIPS: Specifications is probably 

18 a better -- is that a better word? 

19 , I'm not talking about 

20 properties. I'm talking about specifications as to 

21 alloy. 

22 I realize that. 

23 Now, I'm not talking about 

24 properties at all, tensile properties or anything like 

25 that because in your spectrograph every element burns 

0089 

1 to a different color. And that's -- that's how come 

2 -- how they figure out by the space of that shade that 

3 they've got what the alloy is. So there had -- they 
4 had to be leaching it out some way. 

5 MR. PHILLIPS: Is any -- did anybody in 

6 here run a spectrograph? I mean, did they -­

7 All the samples that was 

8 sent out there did they do a spectrogram on them? 

9 That's how it was tested. 

10 Huh? 

11 That's how it's tested, 

12 it's burnt. It's burnt. They put the samples in like 

13 this and they -- they put them up there so -- so close 

14 together. They put high electrical charge through it 

15 so that they will burn. That gives you a chart of 

16 colors that gives you your spectrograph. And every 

17 element burns to a different color. 

18 MR. PHILLIPS: Every -- every element will 

19 have its own signature of what -- ­

20 Yes. 

21 MR. PHILLIPS: -- what colors come off of 

22 that. I don't know enough about a spectrograph to 

23 know. Is anybody in here that actually ran a 

24 spectrograph? 

25 No. But they told us that 

0090 

1 time they were allowed to have so many different 

2 things in it that would still pass. I mean, it may 

3 have had it in it, but it was low enough to where it 

4 would still pass. 

5 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. All right. I think 

6 we have the essence here of that that -- that thorium 

7 alloyed material or maybe even thorium was added to 

8 materials, whatever they might be. 

9 Yeah. 

10 MR. PHILLIPS: Because that's -- that's 

11 the essence of it. We don't know right now if the 

12 spectrograph would have picked it up whether -- I -- I 

13 don't know whether that's set just to look at certain 

14 elements when you look at it or whether it does a 

15 broad spectrum or not. That's something we can find 

16 out later, but -- but duly noted what you said. 

17 Well, is there a 

18 possibility that even though it showed up they said 

19 that's no problem? 

20 : Well, if -- if you're 

21 talking like AZ31B and using so much -- if you've got 

22 6,000 pounds of metal in your pots, you can have two 

23 or three pounds of thorium in there and it won't -- it 

24 won't miss the chart that they have to go by. 

25 MR. PHILLIPS: It's below the sensitivity 
0091 

1 of the instrument. 

2 Yeah. Below the 

3 sensitivity level. 

4 But you're saying on the 

5 spectrogram it's going to pick up everything. 

6 That's right. It will show 

7 it, but it -- it will be in tolerance. 

8 It couldn't go into the roller 

9 until the spectrograph said it was alloyed properly. 

10 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. Let's let speak 

11 and then we'll -- we'll get through here. 

12 Well, I don't know about that 

13 particular spectrograph. But I've operated enough 

14 spectrographs to know that the general answer to the 

15 question is that -- one issue is sensitivity, is there 

16 enough in there that it will even form a color peak. 

17 The other issue with a spectrograph is you -- you can 

18 read the output of a spectrograph two different ways. 

19 One way is there are window settings where 

20 it just looks at a particular peak. And if you set it 

21 for let's say three windows, then that's the reading 

22 you'll get, whatever appears in those windows. And 

23 anything outside the windows you won't see it at all. 

24 And then another way to do it is, you 

25 know, you can have a very elaborate standard which 

0092 

1 will show peaks of known materials like beryllium -­

2 thorium let's say as added peaks in a standard and 

3 compare that to a -- a line tracing of your 

4 spectrograph which will show every single peak that's 

5 generated. 

6 And so it depends on the way the 

7 spectrograph was operated, whether it was worked by 

8 windows or they read a continuous spectrum and used 

9 elaborate standards and looked for the beryllium and 

10 looked for the thorium. If they didn't look for 

11 those, they wouldn't be recorded. 

12 So once again, you know, that's why we 

13 crucially -- to answer that question correctly we need 

14 to have -- to look for the records of the spectrograph 

15 output. And we don't know if they exist. But again, 

16 Dow Madison may still have them or they may have them 

17 at the Midland headquarters. 

18 May I say a word or two? When 

19 Spectrulite first took over the plant that area you 

20 were talking about that was screened in to store the 

21 thorium, I went back there. I was a , and 
22 I used to haul the material also in for the men to 
 

23 charge. And I was back there in the area, and there 
 

24 was a gentleman back in there going through all that 
 

25 scrap. It was all mixed in. The thorium alloys was 
 

0093 
 

1 mixed in with AZ31B, ZK60. It was , the 

2 man that bought the plant. 

3 And I said who are you and he said well 

4 he said I'm looking for this H -- this HM21, this 

5 thorium metal. And I said if you look around in here, 

6 it's the only scrap you'll find that's marked 

7 someplace in there with a pen. And that was 

8 that bought the plant. It's mixed in with 

9 other alloys in there. It was back in there because 

10 the cage was a small cage in the corner.' And the 

11 other place was where we stored all kind of scrap and 

12 other .alloys. I just wanted to emphasize that. 

13 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. Thank you. Did you 

14 have something? 

15 No. covered it. 

16 MR. PHILLIPS: , yours was covered 

17 too? 

18 I was going to say about the 

19 same thing what he did. Whenever the spec lab -- when 

20 they run it they'd run like, you know, so much mag, so 

21 much aluminum in it or so much whatever. They'd -­

22 they'd check that out. 

23 And like when we had this six million 

24 pounds of mag from Russia that was radioactive it kept 

25 getting a spike in there and they didn't know where it 

0094 

1 was coming from. But they were only looking for 

2 certain -- certain alloys, say for AZ31. Whatever it 

3 took -- wherever that met that spec then that was okay 

4 to do it. And that's what they were doing there. 

5 They weren't looking for you dumping other stuff in 

6 there, you know, or anything else. They were just 

7 looking for what they're -- what they're needing to 

8 run. That's what that was out there. 

9 MR. PHILLIPS: As far as the thorium 

10 usage, thorium alloying process and everything, is 

11 there anything else that comes to your mind that would 

12 be helpful? 

13 Well, I read and I -- I 

14 didn't know anything about this beryllium deal, that 

15 so much of that was put into aluminum. And I think 

16 one of you fellows over there told me that, that it 

17 was down in the aluminum unit. Why, we never knew 
18 that there was anything in aluminum. We just knew 

19 them by their -­ they were like 7005 or 2024 or 

20 whatever, you know. 

21 And what made the difference in them was 

22 how they were either stretched or whatever they were 

23 done to them, run through the Lindbergh, aged and all 

24 that determined the -­ of course, it didn't -­ it 

25 determined the finished product, but it didn't tell 

0095 

1 you -­ the 7075 was an alloy that came over there. 

2 2024 was an alloy that came over there. These are 

3 alloys that were in aluminum. And I'm hearing from 

4 these people in alloy that beryllium was one of the 

5 main things that they used to cast their aluminum 

6 with. 

7 Now, whether beryllium is a -­ is a -­

8 causes cancer or not I have no idea. I -­ I was told 

9 there is a -­ I -­ I guess it was NIOSH, they come up 

10 some eight, ten years ago to one of the meetings. And 

11 I was just told that there is a beryllium disease that 

12 restricts your lungs and also that the only way that 

13 they can find that is by blood tests. 

14 Now, I had a blood test run, and I've 

15 never got the results back. And anyway, I have also 

16 had -­ I know I've got deterioration of my lungs, but 

17 I don't have any cancer. So I'm wondering if all this 

18 alloys of aluminum that if beryllium was in that to 

19 the point to where it would cause something like a -­

20 is it -­ is it radioactive? 

21 MR. PHILLIPS: Not that beryllium. There 

22 is a beryllium isotope that is but not what you 

23 What I understand is -­ I 

24 also understand is that it would get so hard that you 

25 have to -­ you can't cut the stuff, you've got to saw 

0096 

1 it or something like that. 

2 MR. PHILLIPS: Why don't we let 

3 explain berylliosis or just to give a broad view. 

4 Yeah. Well, beryllium metal, 

5 you know, gets into your lungs and -- in particular if 

6 it's in fumes or dust -- and it -- it causes two 

7 diseases that are compensated under this act. One of 

8 them is called beryllium sensitivity. So in -- in 

9 effect your body mounts an allergic response, and 

10 and that's detectible through this test you were 

11 talking about, the lymphocyte proliferation test. 

12 So they take a blood sample, then they 

13 take a little bit of that blood sample, put in into a 
14 petri dish and actually expose your lymphocytes, the 

15 immune cells in your blood to a sample of beryllium. 

16 And somebody whose been exposed to it for a long time 

17 and is hypersensitive has a reaction of their 

18 lymphocytes to the beryllium that can -­ that can be 

19 quantified. And so that's called a lymphocyte 

20 proliferation test, and that indicates that you are 

21 more sensitive to beryllium than the rest of the 

22 population. 

23 Then a certain percentage of people who 

24 are sensitive to beryllium after months usually or 

25 years of exposure to it then can develop fibrous 

0097 

1 tissue growth in their lungs, and that's called 

2 chronic beryllium disease or CBD. And chronic 

3 beryllium disease honestly the -­ the lymphocyte 

4 proliferation test is not the only or the best way to 

5 test for that. I mean, you can test for that by a 

6 chest x-ray in combination with pulmonary function 

7 tests. And the most definitive way to detect chronic 

8 beryllium disease is to take a biopsy, a piece of 

9 tissue and do what people like myself do, pathologists 

10 look at it under the microscope and -­ and detect it 

11 by its histologic characteristic. 

12 And then finally, although for reasons 

13 that baffle me, there is still some controversy in 

14 certain scientific circles about whether beryllium is 

15 a human carcinogen. But to me the evidence that it is 

16 a human carcinogen are overwhelming, and I can't 

17 imagine why that -­ why there's any controversy about 

18 that. But the act interestingly only compensates 

19 cancers that are caused by radiation. But in addition 

20 it covers people who have beryllium sensitivity or 

21 chronic beryllium lung disease. So -­ and the law 

22 further specifies that -­ I think it's after i993 to 

23 have a diagnosis of beryllium disease you have to have 

24 that lymphocyte proliferation test. So -­

25 Nobody can afford it. 

0098 

1 Well, there are -­ there are 

2 various ways to get it done. I don't think that's the 

3 subject of this meeting. But if you want to 

4 talk to me about it, I'm trying to find out the 

5 easiest, best, and cheapest way to have it done. And 

6 I can tell you that the Department of Energy has a 

7 program to do free screening for it, but unfortunately 

8 Dow is not at the present qualified for that program. 

9 And so we'll just have -- we'll have to take that up. 
10 But I -- I know that's an issue, and I know we need to 

11 define the best way to get that done for you guys. 

12 The -- the comment I'd like to make is 

13 that a lot of beryllium was used for a very long time 

14 at that plant. And you know, so it, as far as the 

15 medical effects to the workers, that's a major factor 

16 there at the Dow plant. And I'm -- I'm glad that the 

17 guys are talking about it today. 

18 Getting away from this for 

19 a minute. We're talking about this thorium cleanup 

20 and taking all this stuff and shipping it out. I hear 

21 comments that it was shipped west. But I was told at 

22 the time that it was happening -- the first one that 

23 happened was that Dow Chemical had bought a used strip 

24 mine in Indiana. I cannot verify that, but I'm -- I 

25 was told at that time that they had bought an old 

0099 

1 strip mine, emptied it in, covered it back up, and it 

2 sits there as normal land today. Now, whereabouts I 

3 can't tell you, but it was going to Indiana. 

4 This is I can 

5 comment that in 1993 a company called ERG, 

6 Environmental Restoration Group was hired by 

7 interestingly Dow -- 1993 now by -- by Dow and by 

8 Consolidated Aluminum. They came to the Dow Madison 

9 plant and they cleared out 850 railroad cars of 

10 thorium magnesium sludge from that 40-acre plot next 

11 to the castings building and shipped it out to 

12 Envirocare in Utah. So that's a -- that's a 

13 documented fact and -­

14 Yes, sir. That's a 

15 documented fact, but I was gone. I left in '83, and 

16 this happened this happened before -- before I 

17 left. 

18 Yeah, I understand. And then 

19 there were -- there were other 

20 .. There ' s other -- other 

21 In the testimony there are 

22 other cleanups of that stuff that have been sent to 

23 various places. This is the first time I've heard 

24 about the Indiana strip mine, but that could very well 

25 be true. It was a -- it had been accumulating there, 

0100 

1 you know, for 40 years by 1993. So -­


2 I worked down there and 
 

3 retired in '92. 
 

4 Uh-huh. 
 

5 Now, when bought 
 
6 the plant from Consolidated Aluminum part of the deal 

7 was that they fenced off that dump out there. 

8 Right. 

9 And he wouldn't buy that 

10 part. Dow owned that. 

11 Dow absolutely denies that. 

12 I -- I have heard that story. 

13 Well see, that's what we 

14 were told. 

15 I understand that, and I 

16 understand that whole history. 

1 7 But what I was going to 

18 say is that I was working down at that plant when they 

19 were cleaning that dump out when they was hauling the 

20 -- all the things out, and I retired in '92. 

21 I got a comment on that. When 

22 they went through that dump Dow Chemical sent two or 

23 three guys in there and built a separate building 

24 outside of the casting clothing room. And they went 

25 out there, and they worked for two years with a Geiger 

0101 

1 counter separating that thorium sludge from all the 

2 other sludge that was in there because the guys taking 

3 it out to the dump had no supervision. They'd keep 

4 dumping in the same spot, they were dumping with other 

5 alloys. They worked out there for two years going 

6 through and separating and getting a separate pile for 

7 all the thorium sludge. And they hauled that -- and 

8 then they hauled that away after that. 

9 And also that was right outside of the 

10 locker room from the dock in casting within 50 feet of 

11 where that storage area was. And they had a -- from 

12 the main gate you had to right by that to bring your 

13 trucks into the warehouses, the docks on the lots. 

14 They went right by it, every truck that ever came in 

15 there. But they spent two years and had their own lab 

16 set up in there outside the fence. As a matter of 

17 fact, the building was an old beat up building setting 

18 there. I had no idea. 

19 I think we need to come off 

20 the Dow dump and go along. 

21 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

22 I don't know if that's going 

23 -- I don't think that's going to help you to -­

24 MR. PHILLIPS: Yeah. I think -- I think 

25 that's all documented in the -- in the affidavits and 

0102 

1 in the other meetings. So unless there's something 
2 that anybody thinks of is not related to what's 

3 already been said. 

4 I'd like to get back to the 

5 beryllium. It concerns me a lot for me and my family 

6 and all these guys and their families because we had 

7 to be taking that dust home. As the I 

8 worked in my street clothes. 

9 MR. PHILLIPS: Yeah. I -­

10 And these guys might -- might 

11 have changed clothes every day, but they had to take 

12 their clothes home to be laundered and so forth. 

13 MR. PHILLIPS: Yeah. I I don't 

14 disagree with that, but I'd like to -- I'd like to 

15 separate that out because we're not -- it's not going 

16 to get to where we need to go here if -- if, you know, 

17 like says is probably the best person to 

18 discuss with you that. I'm -- I'm just not familiar 

19 with it to be real honest with you, and it's really 

20 not part of this. It's not to -- to put you off 

21 because I know it's important to you. But I'm afraid 

22 that we could -- we could get bogged down here and not 

23 get to where we want to go. But please hold on to 

24 that, and I'm sure will be glad to discuss it with 

25 you. 

0103 

1 Yeah. We'll -- we'll have a 

2 follow-up meeting just about beryllium if -- if there 

3 are enough people who want to talk about it because -­

4 so I agree we should move on. 

5 One more question if you don't 

6 mind for 

7 Yeah. 

8 Could you tell me after you 

9 have the blood sample how -- how long a period of time 

10 before it should be tested? I've heard conflicting 
 

11 reports. 
 

12 .. In other words, how much of a 
 

13 delay can you have 
 

14 Right. 
 

15 -- between the -- well, 
 

16 you're testing live lymphocytes. 
 

17 Well, I'm having it done 
 

18 Monday at Quest Diagnostics. 
 

19 Yeah. 
 

20 And they have to send it to 
 

21 Cleveland, Ohio. 
 

22 Yeah. Yeah. Well, they need 
 

23 to send -­

24 They say 72 hours. Now, is 
 

25 that right? I don't know. 
 

0104 
 

1 ,. Well, you know, I'm not going 

2 to second guess Quest Diagnostics. My approach would 

3 be to ask them to send it Fed-Ex overnight. 

4 That's supposedly what they 

5 are going to do. 

6 Well, that will get there in 

7 less than 24 hours. 

8 said 24 hours. 

9 Right. 

10 Forty-eight hours. In that 48 

11 hours it has to be tested. 

12 Right. 

13 I just called him up on that 

14 because I was -- I had the same question and I had the 

15 same answer as he did. 

16 Send it Fed-Ex overnight 

17 priority. I'm telling you that's the way to tell them 

18 to do it and don't -- don't equivocate around. Just 

19 tell them to send it as fast as possible, and then it 

20 will get tested within 24 to 48 hours or it should. 

21 But -- but you want to get it there. They're live 

22 lymphocytes, and those cells break down and stop 

23 working right -- the longer you let it wait. So they 

24 put it in a preservative so it will keep them going. 

25 But anyway -- okay? 

0105 

1 I spoke 

2 with a lady last night that's given me permission to 

3 tell you that she couldn't come today but she would 

4 like to talk with you. Her name's or 

5 (phonetic). I'll get you the exact name and 

6 phone number. She was in the administrative 

7 department of Dow and can definitely confirm materials 

8 being shipped to and from Rocky Flats in the 70's and 

9 '80s. 

10 MR. PHILLIPS: Maybe we can -­

11 I believe she said that around 

12 -- I'm wanting to -- I'm wanting to say 1988 that 

13 there was a big rush to send -- they cleaned out all 

14 the documents according to her. What she told me 

15 they'd take out all the documents up in the offices 

16 and then shipping it all. And she thought it was -­

17 Well, she was talking about 

18 barrels of material. 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: What we could do is if -­
20 we can set up a conference call. And Grady, if you 

21 wanted to be in on it and and I, we could -­ we 

22 can talk to her. I'm -­ what about the person who was 

23 going to do the telephone thing? Where did we -­ what 

24 happened to that? 

25 You know what, I can go call 

0106 

1 him. I'll leave and go call him soon. 

2 MR. PHILLIPS: I'm sorry. I forgot that. 

3 Let's let's see if -­ would you mind seeing if we 

4 could do that. 

5 I'll go do that. 

6 MR. PHILLIPS: Because I don't want to 

7 forget it. Okay. , did you have in mind, I mean, 

8 another -­ did you want to say something? 

9 Well, I just thought maybe we 

10 could come off the dump over there and then go and 

11 talk to the people in extrusion. And when they get 

12 done then go to the rolling mill. 

13 MR. PHILLIPS: Yeah. I think we -­ we 

14 started somewhere and we -­ we got lost. But did we 

15 -­ did -­ we talked about the casting. Did we talk 

16 about -­ and I guess in that we talked about the pot 

17 -­ potting process too whatever it's call. 

18 In this -­ in that casting we 

19 weren't -­ we didn't wear any protective clothing 

20 whatsoever, no respirator. And the clothes were just 

21 bib overalls and flannel shirts. We weren't 

22 instructed anything, you know, to protect us. 

23 MR. PHILLIPS: Does that cover through 

24 1990 when you were there? 

25 Yes. 

0107 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: At any time during that? 

2 I don't know what happened 

3 after '90, no. This was at that time. Ventilation 

4 was very bad in the casting department. About '67 

5 they (inaudible) big fan, and each unit had one. Half 

6 of them didn't work half the time. 

7 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

8 So ventilation was bad. 

9 Sometimes you couldn't see the guy next to you it was 

10 so dark in there. And I got one comment about 

11 something that happened to me in the early '50s. A 

12 fellow I was working with was a metal caster and he 

13 says hey, , I've got a clearance -- a security 

14 clearance from Rocky Flats. I said you are. He said 

15 I'm thinking about transferring jobs out there. And 
16 it went on for about a month or two, finally he come 

17 to me one day and said I decided not to go out to 

18 Rocky Flats. And I think maybe Dow must have been 

19 recruiting different ones in the plant to go to Rocky 

20 Flats. He eventually didn't go and a few years later 

21 he passed away. I just thought I'd like to emphasize 

22 that. 

23 I just wanted to make a 

24 comment and try to get some clarification on a couple 

25 of employees that passed away of brain cancer down 

0108 

1 there, (phonetic) and 

2 (phonetic); that they both worked on 7 Press. And 

3 that was the most highly radiation contamination above 

4 it. 

5 I worked with both of those 

6 guys. 

7 Yeah. And they both died 

8 of a -- some kind of a brain cancer identical. And 

9 they -- they would relieve each other. You know, you 

10 worked three shifts. They would relieve each other. 

11 They were both billet attendants. 

12 Billet heater attendants, 

13 right. 

14 MR. PHILLIPS: Yeah. That -- that's in 

15 the record. And I'm -- and I'm not trying to put you 

16 off, but I don't think that's -- I don't think there's 

17 anything that we can -- we can address in here about 

18 that. I mean, it's noted in the record, and you know, 

19 we all looked at it. 

20 But in '95 is when they done 

21 their contamination cleanup above that press, correct? 

22 2000. 

23 MR. PHILLIPS: was it '95? 

24 And then again in 2000, July 

25 of 2000. 

0109 

1 And then again in 2000? Did 

2 they do -- they done two cleanups there? 

3 Right. 

4 Well, I heard that they -­

5 well, in fact, I saw a picture of it -- that they sold 

6 7. And when they -- who they sold it to shipped it 

7 back to them because it was so damn hot with radiation 

8 that they -- they didn't want it. And it sat on a 

9 lowboy down in Venice someplace down there for -­

10 : I -- and I recall hearing it 

11 in the newspaper. I went down to Venice, and I saw 
12 that press sitting on its lowboy down there because 

13 the lowboy blowed some tires out. And 

14 , was sitting there in his 

15 watching it that day I was down there. I 

16 heard it's back in the plant covered up with plastic. 

17 They stripped it out. 

18 Inside the plant and then 

19 hauled it out piece by piece? 

20 Uh-huh. 

21 I just want it noted that 

22 when they casted that thorium the smoke filtered right 

23 into the extrusion department from -- from everyplace. 

24 It just filtered and -- you know, it was just as 

25 smokey in that department and over to the mill. 

0110 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: Were· there -- were there 

2 fans in to ventilate that area but they were 

3 blowing it over toward 

4 It would go all the way over 

5 to the rolling mill. 

6 Yes. 

7 Inside the plant and all the 

8 way. 

9 It just filtered -- it 

10 filtered -- filtered out throughout the plant. 

11 MR. PHILLIPS: But they did use fans? I 

12 mean, is that all the time, most of the time? 

13 There was no fans in the 

14 warehouse. Just in the casting there was fans. 

15 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

16 The warehouse had fans 

17 ceiling fans. 

18 They didn't need any. The 

19 fans would blow it. It was so heavy the building 

20 filled up and it had to go out any openings that it 

21 could get. And then it went into all the whole plant. 

22 We had ceiling fans, but most of them were all ate up 

23 from the flux -­

24 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

25 -- and everything going up 

0111 

1 through there. The blades were all ate up on them. 
 

2 They tried to maintain them, but they couldn't even 
 

3 keep up with it. 
 

4 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 
 

5 But that's where all the 
 

6 smoke went. It wasn't blowed out by fans. Our · 
 

7 building would fill up so thick that there was nowhere 
 
8 else to go. It had to flow out the doors. That's how 

9 it got in the other departments. I seen it all 

10 especially the rolling mill. 

11 MR. PHILLIPS: Yeah. I -- that's -­

12 that's in all of these reports about these. 

13 Chick, everybody, there is 

14 one other aspect that if you have anything to say, 

15 this would be a good time because this is about the 

16 SEC and dose reconstruction. And that is that as 

17 Chick knows there -- there are at least two reports of 

18 separate incidents where guards accompanied ingots or 

19 billets of what was said to be plutonium. And in one 

20 of those situations it was said to have emanated from 

21 Rocky Flats. 

22 So if anybody has any more information 

23 about the plutonium work. As I remember it where we 

24 stand so far is nobody knows exactly what was done to 

25 those. And -- and like I say, there's one link to the 

0112 

1 -- to an Atomic Energy Commission site at Rocky Flats. 

2 And -- but for this discussion it would be good again 

3 to get the time frame for that. So does does 

4 anybody know about the plutonium billets at Madison 

5 site? 

6 I have a -- I was told 

7 they had sheets that they brought in and they were 

8 rolling them down on 7 Mill. And the metal was so 

9 hard that they didn't have any ovens other than the 

10 die ovens in -- in extrusion they could get a hot 

11 enough temperature to the annealums to where they 

12 could make another pass on them. 

13 Now, all that metal was guarded, and they 

14 actually was carrying a gun. And a couple of the 

15 guards were friends of mine, and I talked to them. 

16 And they said -- but they told me when he was down 

17 there standing down there by the -- the annealing unit 

18 -- or the die ovens, and he was saying that well, they 

19 told me that this -- each one of these sheets is worth 

20 a quarter of a million dollars. Well, we were told it 

21 was platinum. 

22 That's right. 

23 ': Yeah. Now, I don't know 

24 -- I don't know anything about platinum, but why would 

25 you have to -- from my understanding with metal 

0113 

1 platinum is not all that hard. And it -- they had to 

2 drive they -- we did not have any ovens in that 

3 plant that would get the temperature up high enough on 
4 those sheets to reroll them other than the die ovens. 

5 And they -- they had seven or eight 

6 sheets of it. And that was Rocky Flats. It came from 

7 Rocky Flats. It was designated Rocky Flats. They 

8 swept up every crumb of it. And the funny part about 

9 the whole thing was -- I think there was eight sheets, 

10 maybe seven. They got back up to Rocky Flats they was 

11 one sheet short. It was laying down on our shipping 

12 dock -- receiving dock in shipping. It'd been there 

13 for weeks or a -- or months rather when they finally 

14 found it. Now, that's the only thing I know about -­

15 about it. I know that for a fact because I knew the 

16 guards, and they happened to be friends of mine. 

17 MR. PHILLIPS: You said it was marked? 

18 Beg your pardon? 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: You said it was marked as 

20 plutonium? Did I -- or did I misunderstand? 

21 No. There wasn't no 

22 markings on it. I didn't see -- they told me 

23 originally the story was it was platinum. 

24 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

25 And I rolled that on 7 Mill -­

0114 

1 Yeah. 

2 at that time. And the 

3 guard stood right there with us the whole time we 

4 rolled that, myself and (phonetic) . 

5 And do we know what year that 

6 was that we're talking about? 

7 Well, I was over in 

8 extrusion, and I didn't bid over there until 1966. So 

9 it was after that time. I can't -- I can't put a date 

10 on it. 

11 It had to be -- it had to be 

12 between '66 then and the end of '67 because I left the 

13 plant at the end of '67, and I worked on that job. 

14 Okay. 

15 MR. PHILLIPS: But they said they were 

16 from Rocky Flats or someone told you they were from 

17 Rocky Flats? 

18 Oh, yeah. There was no 

19 question about that, it was Rocky Flats metal. 

20 Right. 

21 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

22 But Dow lied to you about 

23 everything else, so when they told me it was worth a 

24 quarter of a million dollars I never thought anything 

25 about it that -- that it was platinum, but I don't buy 
0115 

1 into that now. 

2 MR. PHILLIPS: It was sheets. What -­

3 what size sheets and how thick? I mean estimate. 

4 Maybe like four-foot wide 

5 and maybe six foot. 

6 About eight foot. 

7 Eight foot. Was it that 

8 much? About eight-foot long. 

9 Between six and eight foot. 

10 MR. PHILLIPS: And about how thick? 

11 I'm sorry? 

12 MR. PHILLIPS: How thick? 

13 When I saw -- saw it it 

14 was about -- I'm going to say about three-eighths of 

15 an inch. 

16 MR. PHILLIPS: And supposedly the purpose 

17 of bringing it in was to to roll it to a thinner 

18 sheet? 

19 Roll it down to a thinner 

20 sheet. And it came from Rocky Flats, and it was 

21 shipped back to Rocky Flats. 

22 MR. PHILLIPS: And were you successful in 

23 rolling it to -­

24 We rolled it, but not to the 

25 gauge that they wanted. Took several passes on it 

0116 

1 back and forth -­

2 Back and forth. 

3 continual. 

4 Yeah. 

5 MR. PHILLIPS: And I heard you say that 

6 then they cleaned up, they took all the scrap. 

7 They took every speck. 

8 When you'd roll something 

9 like that well, you'd break off at the ends of it 

10 because it -- it would get cold on you and it would 

11 break, you know. So they kept every bit of it. 

12 MR. PHILLIPS: And what temperature? Do 

13 you remember roughly what temperature you rolled it 

14 in? 

15 No. I can't say to that. 

16 I can't either. 

17 I do know -- the only 

18 thing I know is for sure that the only oven we had in 

19 the plant that would get it hot enough to where they 

20 could make -- anneal it and make another pass. 

21 The ovens started out at 
22 1,600. 
 

23 MR. PHILLIPS: And the highest one, the 
 

24 one you were talking about -- how high would the 
 

25 temperature go on that? 
 

0117 
 

1 That I don't know either. 


2 It -- but like our solution heat treat ovens and stuff 


3 like that the metal got up over 800 degrees. So it 


4 had to be a lot more than that. 


5 MR. PHILLIPS: Anybody have any -­


6 Is there some discussion here 


7 if Dow was involved at Rocky Flats, or is that a known 


8 fact? 


9 That's a known fact. 


10 MR. PHILLIPS: They operated it, yeah. 

11 Some of the questions going 

12 on it makes me wonder. 

13 They built it. 

14 Okay. 

15 They operated it 

16 That's what I thought. 

17 -- from 1951 to 1975. 

18 Yeah. But -- but some of the 

19 questions that was going on it sounded like they was 

20 trying to prove that Dow Chemical run that plant. 

21 They did. 

22 MR. PHILLIPS: No. 

23 No. Okay. 

24 MR. PHILLIPS: We -- yeah, that's known. 

25 That's -­

0118 

1 No. But we're trying to see if 

2 there's a connection I think between Madison and Rocky 

3 Flats. 

4 Well, what he brought up a 

5 while ago about the gentleman we worked with was going 

6 to transfer to Rocky Flats. I told him -- I said 

7 you know you're going to lose all your seniority. He 

8 said no. He said that's still Dow Chemical, I carry 

9 it with me to Rocky Flats. So that's the connection 

10 right there. 
 

11 MR. PHILLIPS: Yeah. It's -- it's -­


12 Who was that? was that ? 
 

13 No. He's dead now. His name 
 

14 was (phonetic). 
 

15 He didn't go. 
 

16 He changed his mind and he 
 

17 didn't go. But when I asked him about his seniority 
 
18 he said oh, that ain't no problem, that's still Dow 

19 Chemical, it goes right with me. 

20 We heard about -- I think it's 

21 or something like that. 

22 MR. PHILLIPS: Yeah. We -- we know that 

23 Dow operated both plants. The question is what -­

24 Well, some of the questions 

25 didn't sound like that so I was wondering. 

0119 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: Well, the -- the questions 

2 -- well, the uncertainty is what kinds of materials 

3 and how much, what were they that were transferred 

4 between the two. That's -- that's the open part of 

5 it. 

6 You might -- you might make 

7 a contact with 

8 MR. PHILLIPS: Who is he? 

9 He was a rolling mill 

10 supervisor, and he would have been in charge of that 

11 about that time. He lives in -­

12 MR. PHILLIPS: He's on the list here but 

13 

14 Yeah. He's on the list. 

15 MR. PHILLIPS: -- he didn't come in. 

16 He would have been here 

17 today, but he broke his classes last night. 

18 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. Has he -- has he 

19 I don't remember everybody that has talked. At any of 

20 the meetings has he talked before? 

21 No. I don't think so. 

22 MR. PHILLIPS: He has not? 

23 No. He's a new person. 

24 This would have been 

25 this would have been mine and his first ones. 

0120 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: Will you -- will you 
 

2 contact him, .? 
 

3 Yes. If he's on the list. 
 

4 , do you have his name? 
 

5 Who? 
 

6 
 

7 MR. PHILLIPS: It's on here with a phone. 
 

8 Not right now but at some point. 
 

9 Yeah. Yeah. 
 

10 He was intending on coming. He 

11 didn't make it, and -- but he would be an interesting 

12 person for you to speak to. So would 

13 Yes. I would 
14 MR. PHILLIPS: Can we get an affidavit 

15 from him? 

16 Yeah. Yes. 

17 They were both -- they were 

18 both in -- in the early years, right? 

19 Apparently he had -- he had an accident with his eye 

20 glasses and couldn't come. 

21 MR. PHILLIPS: What about the -­

22 I tried. He was working with 

23 his wife. Let me try one more time. His wife is 

24 very, very ill. He said he'd call me right back. 

25 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. I know something 

0121 

1 about casting now. What about the pot mill? Do we 

2 need to -- need to go there, or is that all intimately 

3 tied together here? 

4 Casting, pot room, aluminum 

5 it's all the same. 

6 ,. One thing can I -- , on 

7 all this stuff I think it would help Chick -­

8 MR. PHILLIPS: I'm going to have to be 

9 excused for a second. 

10 Yeah. When he comes back why 

11 don't we all talk about it. Can we put an end date on 

12 thorium production throughout the plant? In other 

13 words, think about 

14 When they quit it? 

15 Yeah. The last time we ran 

16 thorium in castings, extrusion, and rolling mill. 

17 About '98 or '99. In casting 

18 they ran a unit in '95 or '96, that's when the 

19 government came in. And then they sent the slabs over 

20 to the mill. They were sitting over in the mill. And 

21 they ran some of them in '98 -- the late part of '98 

22 or early part of '99. And they sat there until they 

23 had the cleanup in 2000. 

24 Uh-huh. 

25 And where they went to from 

0122 

1 there I never found out who got them or where they 

2 went to. But there must have been I'd say close to 30 

3 or 40 slabs of -- thorium slabs in the mill in -- in 

4 the 2000 cleanup which was in, what, June, July, 2000? 

5 And we also -- and we know 

6 when there was residual thorium in June of 2005 

7 because of that Pangea survey. So how about in 

8 extrusion? What -- when was the last time we think 

9 extrusion of thorium took place? 
10 Extrusion ran the clench bar. 

11 That's that -- you guys might know that, that 

12 four-inch -- four-inch and they cut it seven inches 

13 long. That was clench bar, that was HK. . 

14 That clench bar was AZ61A. 

15 AZ61. Yeah. 

16 AZ61? 

17 Yeah. We -- it -- it was 

18 a (inaudible) of the Sable (phonetic) shell. 

19 Yeah, the Sable. 

20 So how late was that run? 

21 You really can't tell when we 

22 quit running it there because a lot of this metal was 

23 shipped in from out -- from other plants such as 

24 Martin-Marietta. 

25 Right. 

0123 

1 And you know, it was just 

2 called special metal or an experimental metal. 

3 That's okay. I'm -- I'm just 

4 trying to get for Chick. 

5 : Up to the time, you know, I 

6 left in 2001 I would say they was still extruding that 

7 stuff then because we was pushing metal. 

8 Okay. And when -- I can't 

9 remember. When when were the extrusion presses all 

10 gone, 2003, '4? 

11 No. They was -­

12 Well, they still had 7 Press. 

13 •. Okay. 

14 Part of the 7 Press. 

15 Yeah. Because we found it 

16 out on the highway. 

17 Yeah, in 2005. 

18 Okay. Okay. So Chick, just 

19 to sum -- while you were gone what I tried to get -­

20 and we -- we could put names to it I guess, but there 

21 was a kind of a group discussion on when -- when did 

22 thorium production end in the various main components 

23 of the plant. And what we came up with was casting 

24 probably 1995, the rolling mill 1998 to '99, and the 

25 extrusion department maybe 2001, maybe even later. So 

0124 

1 except for casting, the thorium production period 
 

2 actually lasted, you know, through this extended SEC 
 

3 period that we're all talking about. So -- so you 
 

4 know, definitionwise if we're talking about the 
 

5 thorium production versus residual periods, it's 
 
6 somewhere around i998 or later. So you know, they 
 

7 were producing thorium alloy all the way through that 
 

8 period. 
 

9 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. Thanks. 
 

10 This is that back part of that 

11 7 Press I was showing right up in here. That was 

12 found down in National City on the side of the road. 

13 You can see in these it was to get it sent and they 

14 sent it back. That's the only pictures I've got, so 

15 I've got to have them back. If you need them or 

16 maybe they can get them copi~d for you. 

1 7 Okay. is on 

18 the phone, he is joining the meeting. And I'll let 

19 you take it from here. 

20 Thank you, 

21 MR. PHILLIPS: Hi, I'm -- I'm Chick 

22 Phillips. I am with Sanford, Cohen & Associates. 

23 Okay. 

24 MR. PHILLIPS: We're a contractor to the 

25 advisory board. 

0125 

1 Okay. 

2 MR. PHILLIPS: And we asked that this 

3 meeting for the workers be set up today so that we 

4 could get a better understanding. 

5 And if my wife was 

6 seriously ill, I'd be there. 

7 MR. PHILLIPS: Well, I'm sorry about that 

8 and wish you could be here. What we're really 

9 focusing in on, although we're not excluding anything 

10 that relates to the Dow plant, is to try to understand 

11 the thorium operations, the alloying operations 

12 involved with the thorium at the plant. That's the 

13 main focus although we've covered other areas and also 

14 anything related to the processing of uranium during 

15 the time period of 1957 to 1960. 

16 Yeah. I was there. 

17 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. So I think probably 

18 the best thing to do would be if you have something 

19 that you would like to say about your involvement with 

20 either of those 

21 Okay. 

22 MR. PHILLIPS: -- of what you knew about 

23 it. 

24 All right. 

25 MR. PHILLIPS: We would like to -- like to 

0126 

1 hear that. 
2 Okay. I was involved with 

3 most of the thorium materials as well as the uranium, 

4 more intimately probably with the uranium but so let 

5 me cover the thorium first. 

6 When I began in 1953 I started in the 

7 spectrometer laboratory. I was analyzing samples that 

8 were brought from the casting floor via a pneumatic 

9 tube system. And we would put thousands of volts 

10 across those little pins that they would send us up to 

11 spark down to get the analysis. Obviously, some of 

12 those were thorium alloys they were casting out in the 

13 casting plant and the pot room. 

14 And you know, I would go out to the pot 

15 room occasionally and see all the dust and dirt and 

16 fumes and poor ventilation and everything. And we 

17 kind of wondered what was going on over the years. 

18 And you know, there's a subbasement there 

19 too where they would cut off the billets as they were 

20 cast. So you could go down below, and that place was 

21 dirty and very, very latent with -- had air and 

22 everything, but you know, we didn't think of it as 

23 being hazardous. 

24 But I'm sure they were casting thorium 

25 alloys during the time period that I was there which 

0127 

1 was in 1953 to 1971. The reason I'm really sure they 

2 were casting the thorium materials there is after I 

3 moved out of the spec lab I worked with process 

4 development out of the laboratory servicing the 

5 extrusion plant, the casting plant, and the rolling 

6 mill. 

7 MR. PHILLIPS: Excuse me. Could you -­

8 could you slow down just a little bit. It's being 

9 a court reporter is recording it. So she's having a 

10 little 

11 Yeah. I'm way too fast for 

12 that. If you want me to repeat anything, you just 

13 need to tell me. 

14 MR. PHILLIPS: You're okay. Just slow 

15 down. Get a southern accent. 

16 But anyway, I serviced all 

17 three plants as a process development technician 

18 working for the metallurgical engineers in the 

19 laboratory which went back and forth between the plant 

20 working on developments of new materials. 

21 And the thorium alloys I'm very familiar 

22 with because we extruded -- I ended up in the 

23 extrusion plant. We extruded HM31 which was three 
24 percent thorium and one percent mixed metal. And that 

25 material was very difficult to extrude and constantly 

0128 

1 required laboratory supervision. You've got a guy 

2 there by the name of I bet he'll be 

3 able to tell you that it was very difficult to control 

4 the speed of the alloy and that sort of thing. 

5 I know because I ended up as a tool and 

6 die design engineer later designing the tools to 

7 extrude those materials -- I know those materials were 

8 used for leading edges of aircraft surfaces. This was 

9 an aircraft where -- where heat would be developed, 

10 and the thorium material resisted the heat and kept 

11 the strength of the metals. But I don't know who the 

12 names of the customers were anymore, Martin-Marietta, 

13 Raytheon, people like that, Hughes. You know, the 

14 typical people in the aeronautic industry. But let's 

15 see. 

16 MR. PHILLIPS: Can you give us a time 

17 frame on that? 

18 Yes. I was in the 

19 laboratory from 1953 until I'm guessing about 1959. 

20 And then I moved out to the extrusion plant as a tool 

21 and die design engineer working upstairs in the 

22 offices of the extrusion plant which were right next 

23 to the casting plant by the way. And that's where I 

24 met and all the other people of course 

25 from my early development days as well as when I 

0129 

1 worked out in the extrusion plant. 

2 I later on became 

3 production services which meant 

4 quality control, process control, process engineering, 

5 and cost analyses. And I reported directly to 

6 So I was constantly seeing what was 

7 going on in the plant. I was constantly being 

8 involved in process control, aware of what was going 

9 on in the casting plant. And my work on the extrusion 

10 plant lasted until 1971 when I -- when I left after 

11 Consolidated Aluminum took over. 

12 The uranium happened while I was a lab 

13 technician. I remember a fellow by the name of 

14 (phonetic) who came over from Mallinckrodt, 

15 and we extruded the uranium billets for him into rods 

16 on No. 7 Press, the 5,500 pound press that everybody 

17 there knows very well. The engineer at Dow Chemical 

18 was (phonetic). I was his technician. We 

19 extruded the material. I think we may have had badges 
20 for radiation, but I'm not sure of that. But you 

21 know, we cut the material, we sampled it, and we 

22 extruded it. We didn't take any special precautions. 

23 We treated it like any other metal. 

24 Now, it's interesting that eventually 

25 came to work for Dow Chemical Company even 

0130 

1 .though he was the metallurgical engineer for 

2 Mallinckrodt during the uranium processing. I -- I 

3 know that he's died I think of probably radiation 

4 causes. 

5 I don't know what else I can tell you 

6 unless you let me pause and see if you'd like me to 

7 t,alk about anything else or maybe you have some 

8 questions. 

9 MR. PHILLIPS: What I'll do is ask the 

10 the workers here is if they want to comment or ask 

11 questions and then -­

12 Most of those guys that 

13 worked in the extrusion plant ought to remember me 

14 because I grew up there. 

15 MR. PHILLIPS: All right. 

16 would like to -­

17 I remember the name. 

18 MR. PHILLIPS: That's southern for 

19 whatever his name is. 

20 When he was talking about 

21 extruding uranium 

22 MR. PHILLIPS: You have to speak louder. 

23 · , when you were talking 

24 about extruding uranium was that pellets? 

25 Was that what? 

0131 

1 The pellet job. 

2 It was billets, yes. 

3 Probably probably 12-inch, 13-inch billets on No. 7 

4 Press. 

5 MR. PHILLIPS: He -- he said pellets. 

6 Oh, pellets. No, the 

7 pellets that we used to extrude were ZK60 which were 

8 six percent zinc and about a half to one percent 

9 zirconium. That was the pellets we used to extrude 

10 mostly on No. 7 Press. 
 

11 MR. PHILLIPS: So the uranium was in 
 

12 billets? 
 

13 Yes. They were solid. 
 

14 Is that the -- is that the 
 

15 right year range too that the -- does the years match? 
 
16 Just tell him 
 

17 says hi to him. I built his home for him. 
 

18 MR. PHILLIPS: says hi. 
 

19 Tell · the house is 
 

20 still standing. 
 

21 MR. PHILLIPS: A few cracks here and 
 

22 there, but it's okay. 
 

23 He's welcome to stop any 
 

24 time. 
 

25 MR. PHILLIPS: Anyone else? 
 

0132 
 

1 Do you have 

2 any information or knowledge of dealings with Rocky 

3 Flats' location while you were there at Dow? 

4 You know, I know of the 

5 Rocky Flats location just from what I read in my 

6 scientific interests. But I don't remember a Dow 

7 Chemical connection with Rocky Flats. It could have 

8 occurred, but I don't remember it. 

9 MR. PHILLIPS: Anyone else? Yeah. 

10 would like to 

11 Okay. 

12 Can you recall for us when 

13 the uranium work the years that it was performed at 

14 Dow from your point of view? 

15 When was it? 

16 Yes, sir. 

17 I -- I would think it had 

18 to be between 1953 and 1960, but I can't pinpoint the 

19 year. 

20 Okay. 

21 MR. PHILLIPS: We thank you very much for 

22 taking the time to do this. We wish your wife well. 

2 3 Okay. Thank you. And I 

24 wish you guys lots of luck on what you're doing. I 

25 think it's a good effort, and I'm hoping it pays off 

0133 

1 for everybody. 
 

2 MR. PHILLIPS: Hold on just a second. 
 

3 Did he say the pellets -- the 
 

4 original pellets that they first brought out were 
 

5 thorium? 
 

6 I heard something about 
 

7 thorium and what? 
 

8 MR. PHILLIPS: He's -- he's talking about 
 

9 the pellets that got extruded. 
 

10 Uh-huh. 

11 MR. PHILLIPS: What -- what the material 
12 was. 

13 I don't remember it being 

14 anything other than ZK60. I don't remember it being 

15 anything else other than ZK60. And the reason for 

16 that is they were casting fine pellets in order to 

17 make a fine grain structure which made a stronger 

18 material. I don't think we ever did anything other 

19 that ZK60 in that, although there could be maybe a 

20 small thing that was done once in a while 

21 experimentally. I can't think of anything there we 

22 ever did in any volume other than ZK60. 

23 He's saying that there was 

24 radiation (inaudible) on those cans is what 

25 was saying. 

0134 

1 What about the heavy 

2 press? They run pellets down there and made billets 

3 out of them as well. 

4 The 14,000 ton press? 

5 Yes. 

6 Boy, I remember a lot of 

7 Boeing material being extruded down there and a lot of 

8 fancy stuff going on down there, but I don't remember 

9 any pellets down there. 

10 Well, it didn't last very 

11 long because it didn't work out. 

12 MR. PHILLIPS: Again, we thank you very 

13 much. 

14 Okay. I wish I could be of 

15 more help and I wish I had more time, but again good 

16 luck to you guys. 

17 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you. Okay. We'll 

18 get we'll get the information on that, right, 

19 ? Okay. Thanks. Okay, 

2 O s going to have to be 

21 leaving right shortly. 

22 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

23 And he was a press operator in 

24 extrusion. Be the first one to start talking. 

25 I don't know much. I know 

0135 

1 in the '90s we ran two special runs. One was Allied 

2 Signal I think, and the other one was Martin-Marietta. 

3 And the second one was when we used the carbon blocks. 

4 we put the carbon block behind the billet, and when 

5 you'd hit the extrude button, hang on because it shot 

6 through there a hundred mile an hour. And all the 

7 dust from up above come falling down. Other than 
8 that, the beryllium and those I don't -­

9 MR. PHILLIPS: What was the time frame 

10 again on that please? 

11 It was '92 -- '91 or '92. 

12 MR. PHILLIPS: And these were two special 

13 runs that you're talking about? 

14 And one was with carbon 

15 blocks and the other one was without. 

16 MR. PHILLIPS: What does carbon blocks 

17 mean? I'm just -­

18 Well, it was a carbon 

19 block. We -- that was first we ever ran it. They 

20 said that was a way to clear the die. 

21 MR. PHILLIPS: Now, where are the carbon 

22 blocks? I'm -- I don't know what it is. 

23 A test block. A test 

24 block. 

25 It follows behind, doesn't it? 

0136 

1 You put the billet in then 


2 back up. 


3 You've got a 9-inch billet 


4 like going in. 


5 MR. PHILLIPS: All right. 


6 You'll have a 9-inch carbon 


7 block about yea thick --­


8 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 


9 right behind it to push it 


10 through. I guess -- I'm not that familiar with it. 

11 But -- but it's only required 

12 for very heavy, hard metals, right, like uranium? I 

13 mean, I believe the testimony before has been that 

14 that carbon block -­

15 Cleans. 

16 It -- yeah. It's -- it's 

17 required for something like uranium or thorium. 

18 Well, actually I was reading 

19 something where Mallinckrodt had an agreement with Dow 

20 Chemical. Part of it they were experimenting with 

21 uranium, but they were also experimenting with a 

22 follower block. 

23 Exactly. They -- they had to 

24 

25 In fact, it was a carbon block. 

0137 

1 Yeah. But it was -- it was 
 

2 
 

3 And I'm trying to get a -­

4 It wouldn't work without it. 

5 It was part of the agreement. 

6 So in a way if -- if a carbon 

7 block was used on a special metal product, you kind of 

8 knew that the special metal had to be uranium. The 

9 only other metals that I'm aware of that would fit the 

10 bill would be uranium, thorium, or plutonium. I mean, 

11 it was a hard metal like that. And the men talk about 

12 it, if you didn't have the right kind of follower 

13 block and the right temperature, the metal would break 

14 up and so forth. So -- so that's -- that's part of 

15 the reason why they think those special runs were a 

16 metal like thorium and probably were thorium. There 

17 wasn't any Mallinckrodt uranium in the 1990s because 

18 Mallinckrodt was gone. So that's -­

19 Well now, we did something 

20 in extrusion, it didn't last very long. But we tried 

21 to extrude titanium. 

22 Okay. 

23 And we had to put in a 

24 special oven to get the billets up to a certain 

25 temperature. And then even after it got to that 

0138 

1 temperature it was heated in a -- the billet heaters. 

2 And they had to put an extra billet heater on a table 

3 to drive the temperature even higher. Well, they 

4 extruded some very simple shapes, T section, I-beam. 

5 One push and the die was eroded away to where they 

6 couldn't use it again. Now, that was only done on 8 

7 Press, and it was only -- it didn't last very long, 

8 like a very short period of time that they tried that. 

9 That's the only thing that I know of that would have 

10 been hard enough that would have required that kind of 

11 temperature. 

12 Okay. Do you know, did that 

13 require a carbon follower block? 

14 You know, I don't know. 

15 Okay. 

16 I can't say. And that was 

17 run on 8 Press. 

18 Okay. 

19 Well, I remember we ran I 

20 guess that one time we did the carbon blocks. And the 

21 people that -- I guess the customers were standing 

22 there. And when we hit the extrusion they took off 

23 behind us. Where the hell you going, you know. Like 

24 I said, when you hit that button it -- we had a stop 

25 on the press. You know, it went right on through it. 
0139 
 

1 Woke up the electricians, millwrights. They all come 

2 out, thought we was tearing the place up. No speed, 

3 you just hit the button and go. 

4 MR. PHILLIPS: But you don't know what the 

5 material was? 

6 It come out, it was a rod 

7 -­ or a bar two or three inches thick, something like 

8 that. Run out with six or eight feet, and that was 

9 it. And they always told the helper don't look in 

10 there because most of the -­ when you start a job a 

11 helper's got to guide it out. They said no, because 

12 it shot out like a rocket. Yeah. 

13 MR. PHILLIPS: 

14 I was burnt in the '60s on 

15 thorium metal. And within one week it -­ from a 

16 blister I had a hole in my -­ the top of my foot about 

17 a quarter of an inch deep, and it just kept eating 

18 into it. And they had to graft skin and everything on 

19 it to get it to stop. And that was HK31. 

20 MR. PHILLIPS: And what was that from? 

21 I'm sorry. 

22 It was thorium metal. 

23 MR. PHILLIPS: A chip hit? 

24 : No. It went -­ liquid metal 

25 went down my boot, and it just burned the whole top of 

0140 

1 my foot. And it took about six weeks before that 

2 thing even started healing up. 

3 And where did you get exposed 

4 to that, in the pot room? 

5 In the pot room. Yes. 

6 Okay. 

7 Yes. When they extruded 

8 those special alloys for these customers the customers 

9 bought the press. They would take the scrap, 

10 everything. And they wouldn't allow no one but the 

11 press people in that area. They didn't want no -­ no 

12 one else around. 

13 Did they rope it off? 

14 Yes. Yes. 

15 MR. PHILLIPS: You're talking about these 

16 same two special runs -­

17 That same time that -­

18 MR. PHILLIPS: that's he's referring 

19 to? 

20 Yes. 

21 Were those the only two special 
22 runs? 

23 No. 

24 No. 

25 There were more where the 

0141 

1 customers brought in -­

2 Just in tons of it. 

3 the customers watched it? 

4 Then get that on the record. 

5 While you all are talking 

6 about this there is one super important thing I've 

7 forgotten. And that is that at the May board meeting 

8 John Mauro (phonetic) who is the head of the project 

9 at SC&A had a draft report with him. And one of the 

10 comments that they had was they had obtained some data 

11 on radioactivity around extrusion presses. And he 

12 commented that the radiation levels were relatively 

13 and I assume this was data from extrusion presses that 

14 were extruding uranium and thorium. And John's 

15 comment was that the levels of radioactivity around 

16 the extrusion presses were relatively low. And one of 

17 the points that I made to the board that day was that, 

18 you know, at a lot of other places that I've read 

19 about the extrusion presses that ran radioactive 

20 metals had hoods -­ vacuum hoods around them, and they 

21 suck that fumes and dust away. And I just wanted to 

22 get it on the record -­ I believe it's true, you all 

23 have said, that the -­ none of the extrusion presses 

24 at Dow Madison had any vacuum sucking hoods. 

25 No. No. 

0142 

1 Is that -­ would you all 

2 confirm or deny that. 
 

3 we did not have any hoods. 
 

4 we did not. 
 

5 Didn't have anything like 
 

6 that. 
 

7 Right. I think that -- so I 
 

8 think that's a general consensus. Yes. 
 

9 Didn't the Corps of Engineers 
 

10 say that it was, what, 15 times above limits above the 


11 press? 


12 I think they said that was the 


13 average of the -­


14 MR. PHILLIPS: I believe that was the dust 


15 on the -- is that what you're referring to? 


16 Yes. 


17 MR. PHILLIPS: , were you talking about 

18 

19 ·: I 'm sorry. 

20 MR. PHILLIPS: You're talking about air 

21 concentrations as opposed to -­

22 Yes. 

23 MR. PHILLIPS: -- direct radiation, right? 

24 Yes. I was talking about air 

25 concentrations in the -- in the immediate vicinity of 

0143 

1 the press. I -- I just wanted to comment on that 

2 because John's report, one explanation for a low level 

3 -- and in his report it wasn't specified whether this 

4 was a hooded or a non-hooded extrusion press. And so 

5 I think that's absolutely crucial. And I would expect 

6 that on a hooded extrusion press the air levels would 

7 be much lower than an unprotected one. And -- and 

8 none of the extrusion presses at Dow had any vacuums. 

9 MR. PHILLIPS: What kind of ventilation -­

10 I mean, was there no no forced ventilation, no fans 

11 or -­

12 Ceiling fans about 35 foot up. 

13 And those didn't work. Most 

14 of them didn't work. I didn't know why they didn't. 

15 They didn't work. I know they weren't on. 

16 Chick, I was just asking 

17 if they were ventilation fans or if they 

18 were simply ceiling fans. 

19 They were simply ceiling 

20 fans. They were supposed to blow air down. They were 

21 supposed -- they were put in on the purpose that they 

22 came out with a claim that they could save so much 

23 heat in the winter time. 

24 MR. PHILLIPS: They were downdraft as 

25 opposed to updraft? 

0144 

1 Yes. Yes. 

2 . . You've got to understand 

3 that that place was almost all glass. 

4 I can't think of the guy's 

5 name that put in that suggestion, but he got some 

6 money for that by putting in all these fans, you know, 

7 to save heat. It forced the warm air down in the 

8 winter time, then they could burn less fuel in the 

9 Dravo heaters. 

10 So they were downdraft. 

11 That was a government 

12 kickback. The government paid for all that. 

13 So they were downdraft 
14 rather than ventilation? 

15 That was a government 

16 kickback. That was a government program. 

17 They didn't really have 

18 any fans down there that was meant to -- to take the 

19 air out of the building because you didn't need them. 

20 You had broken windows. The whole plant was glass, 

21 and so everything went up. You know, the heat from 

22 the presses drove it all up. And your ceilings were 

23 black naturally. And -- and there wasn't a real need 

24 for exhaust fans for purposes other than maybe over in 

25 alloy and some places when -- when you had high 

0145 

1 humidity there would be chances when that whole damn 

2 place would be full of smoke. 

3 MR. PHILLIPS: Were they all downdraft in 

4 casting and -- were those downdraft or updraft? 

5 No. We didn't have downdraft. 

6 We had big ventilation fans in the -­

7 MR. PHILLIPS: Updraft? 

8 Yeah. 

9 That was -- you guys, that 

10 was only in the pot room, wasn't it? 

11 The warehouse didn't have 

12 fans. 

13 The smoke would drift out 

14 towards the mill and it keeps the warehouse 

15 (inaudible). 

16 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

17 In their permit 

18 MR. PHILLIPS: Hold on guys. We got to do 

19 one at a time. 

20 They had caustic things 

21 where they worked on the dies, it was supposed to 

22 clean them off with acid. And that went up to the 

23 ceiling because the fans didn't work and the crane men 

24 and all them got that. And they sent people to the 

25 hospital before for caustic burns because the exhaust 

0146 

1 wasn't working. And they had that all the way in the 

2 heavy press where that -- that if it was a bad day it 

3 just drifted all through there. And some people were 

4 sensitive to it and some of them weren't. But they -­

5 they never worked most of the time. And every time 

6 they cleaned a die up it had to go back there to the 

7 die shop and be dipped in there all that stuff washed 

8 out and boiled up and went to the ceiling. And most 

9 generally they didn't work. 
10 There had to be millions and 

11 millions and tons of this material went through that 

12 plant. People just can't visualize how much material 

13 went through that plant and how much of it was 

14 contaminated, just millions of it. 

15 Yes. In the '90s they ran a 

16 job on the heavy press for Allied Signal, and they 

17 extruded it. Allied Signal bought the press. They 

18 extruded it. They solution and heat treated the 

19 material, and they had hot ice trucks just to the 

20 north end of the solution heat treat ovens. And as it 

21 came out the solution heat treat oven we put it in the 

22 hot ice trucks. We stored it in the hot ice trucks, 

23 you know, for it to -- I don't know -- to reach specs, 

24 you know, whatever. And then it was shipped over to 

25 the rolling mills for them to roll it down to so many 

0147 

1 thousandths or whatever. 


2 MR. PHILLIPS: Is that the same Allied 


3 Signal -­


4 Yes. 


5 MR. PHILLIPS: that we're talking about 


6 here? 


7 Is it the same Allied Signal or 


8 the same run? Was that the same run? 


9 No. No. No. It was a 


10 different run, a different run. 
 

11 A different run, okay. 
 

12 MR. PHILLIPS: Did I see somewhere that 
 

13 that material had been identified or is it still 
 

14 unidentified, the -- the material that had to be 
 

15 cooled? 
 

16 I don't -- I have not heard 
 

17 it identified. 
 

18 Yeah. 
 

19 No. 
 

20 I didn't hear what you said. 
 

21 Were there any other special 
 

22 runs that you guys know of? 
 

23 That was for the Stealth 
 

24 Bomber there. We ran that back in the heavy press 
 

25 (inaudible) put them on there. 
 

0148 
 

1 Right. 

2 And they had a guy from the 

3 company there where he came and watched it the whole 

4 time. And they banded them each one on and they took 

5 them out to the refrigerator back there, and that was 
6 for Allied. 
 

7 What year was that? 
 

8 1994. I just found out last 
 

9 night. 
 

10 was the 

11 on that. And they had a problem where they did them 

12 all wrong and they fell inside the oven. So when we 

13 came on the four to 12 shift my helper noticed them. 

14 They had to turn the bolts around the other way so 

15 they would stay on. So they weren't going to send 

16 them home. So they stayed and run that out. 

17 Do I remember it right or 

18 not, didn't the Air Force buy that big press? The Air 

19 Force paid for it. It came from Germany. They 

20 brought the German engineers with them too in 'SO 

21 '57. They assembled it, the engineers. 

22 MR. PHILLIPS: You mean the Air Force 

23 brought it in to Dow or whoever? 

24 They bought it. They 

25 bought it, then it was brought in. It was shipped 

0149 

1 it was shipped from Germany. It was part of Hitler's 

2 machinery, they had that big press, 14-ton press. It 

3 was all -- the Air Force -- I understand the Air Force 

4 bought it because they needed it for the -- one of our 

5 bombers, for the wings of the -- for the bombers we 

6 had. It was the first thing they --- they pushed out 

7 of that. 

8 Yes. This is the biggest 

9 extrusion press in the world and has a long history. 

10 But -­ 11 . One comment about it. 

12 They brought it all in, they brought it by boat and 

13 they came away down and they pulled it over here on 

14 the outskirts of Granite City and it ran off the -- it 

15 ran off the track. It was stuck there. It was a 

16 massive press, you know. 

17 I got one more thing. Like he 

18 said, tons of that metal was made. In one day in a 

19 24-hour period on the HM31 they'd make 90,000 pounds a 

20 day. And in one week they'd do 630,000 pounds a week. 

21 So a week was just a short run really. A lot of times 

22 it was two and three weeks at a time of thorium metal 

23 being made. 

24 MR. PHILLIPS: How much in a week? I'm 

25 sorry. 

0150 

1 630,000 pounds. 
2 Now, that's in case we don't 

3 go on a tempcon, seven-day schedule. 

4 . Yeah. That was a -­

5 That was a five-day schedule. 

6 You just can't imagine. 

7 Most of the time we run the 

8 thorium we went on a seven-day schedule. We'd work 

9 seven days, then come off. Seven days you'd get four 

10 days off. On all the unexpensive metal we were on 

11 tempcon. 

12 MR. PHILLIPS: Hold on guys. One at a 

13 time. What -- what year are you referring to? 

14 That was almost all the time 

15 when we ran that. I'm referring to any time after '60 

16 all the way through. I retired in '99 and it would 

17 still be that way. 

18 So.this was kind of an 

19 average for that '60 through '90? 

20 I'd say '99 or '98, somewhere 

21 in that area I think. I don't know exactly when they 

22 quit making that 31. It could have been '95 to '98, 

23 somewhere in that area. 

24 One thing you have to 

25 ·remember and take into consideration is that how light 

0151 

1 

2 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you for coming. I'm 

3 sorry. 

4 I say one thing you need 

5 to take into consideration is how light magnesium is. 

6 And when .he's talking 630,000 pounds, that may not 

7 sound like very much if you're talking steel, but 

8 that's a lot of metal when you're talking mag. 

9 You load trucks with -- if the 

10 third -- with a third liner is on a full truck because 

11 you don't have any more room to put any more metal in 

12 it. It's a lot of -­

13 Speaking of amounts, one of 

14 the things we haven't talked about today that would be 

15 interesting for Mr. Phillips I think is for you all to 

16 talk about -- maybe, , you could talk about the 

17 amount of thorium alloy that was sent to Rocky Flats. 

18 You know, I know what you all have described, but I 

19 think it'd be useful to talk about that again. 

20 I -- I can't really say 

21 exactly how much we sent, but I'd say at least a 

22 truckload a week went to Rocky Flats. And that would 

23 go anywhere if it was what we called sheath which was 
24 kind of thin metal it would be about 36,000 pounds~ on 

25 a truck. And plate would go up to maybe 42,000 

0152 

1 pounds. And we -- we shipped a lot of it to -- like 

2 that to Rocky Flats. In say a month, you know, you'd 

3 have four trucks a month or so. 

4 We'd also send it to Los Alamos. They 

5 always wanted a sample first. You were talking about 

6 samples. You always had to send a samples of whatever 

7 they were ordering. If they were ordering six-inch 

8 plate, you had to cut it, you know, foot by foot and 

9 send it to them. Then they'd come back and say send 

10 -- send what they ordered, you know. Sometimes you'd 

11 order two truckloads and three truckloads or whatever 

12 to them, and -­

13 MR. PHILLIPS: That's HM31 material you're 

14 talking about? 

15 What? 

16 MR. PHILLIPS: You're talking about HM31 

17 material? 

18 HM31, HK -- or HM21, HK31. We 

19 -- we had three different places that Martin-Marietta 

20 had; one in Tennessee, one in Georgia, and one in 

21 Florida. And Rocky Flats and Los Alamos was the -­

22 the big, big ones that we sent to. 

23 You always knew when you were sending out 

24 metal that -- you know, if it was radioactive or not 

25 because we had to put the little red stickers on it on 

0153 

1 down on all the -- all the skids and everything else. 

2 And -- but we -- we started setting records like 12, 

3 15 million pounds a year of mag. And that was a lot 

4 of mag at that time to be shipped. 

5 , I hate to keep 

6 interrupting and I hate to keep making this point, but 

7 I have to. I want you to just put on the record when 

8 you're talking about 12 to 15 million pounds of mag 

9 per year, you're talking about magnesium alloy. 

10 :: Yeah. 

11 Some of which was magnesium 

12 thorium alloy, right? 

13 I'd say most of it was. 

14 Okay. 

15 The biggest part of it. 

16 Well, but the point I'm 

17 trying to make is people who read mag or aluminum may 

18 assume that we're talking about pure aluminum or pure 

19 magnesium metal. And although there was some, that 
20 that'• s not -­ what was it, ten percent of what you 

21 sent out was pure magnesium or even lower than that? 

22 In other words, magnesium per se is always alloyed and 

23 -­ and Dow Chemical companywide was specializing in -­

24 in the thorium magnesium alloys. Is that a fair 

25 statement? 

0154 

1 Yeah. I'd say most of the 

2 might know, But almost all the -- all the mag 

3 that we shipped out was usually radioactive except for 

4 PE, and we shipped out some tooling plate. But other 

5 than that it's all -- all went to different outfits. 

6 And I'd say 95 percent of all the metal that we did 

7 ship out -­ that's both mag and aluminum in that -­

8 all had DOE, in care of like Rocky Flats or 

9 Martin-Marietta or, you know, whoever the customer 

10 was, you know care of. But everything that Dow had 

11 was -­ had DOE on it when they mailed it out or, you 

12 know, shipped it out. 

13 MR. PHILLIPS: And the time frame again. 

14 Is that '60 to '99? 

15 I'd say from '62 to '75. 

16 MR. CALHOUN: Chick, I have it leave, 

17 guys. So I got a plane to catch. But thanks for 

18 having me here. I actually learned a lot from you 

19 guys. So continue on. It's a shame that I can't stay 

20 longer, but this is the last flight I can catch for a 

21 while. So I'm glad I didn't plan on the two o'clock. 

22 All right. Thank you for 

23 coming. 

24 Thanks, Grady. 

25 MR. PHILLIPS: Do you remember anything 

0155 

1 other than just Rocky Flats, it just went to Rocky 
 

2 Flats? I mean, there's nothing more specific? 
 

3 Of stuff we sent to them? 
 

4 MR. PHILLIPS: Right. 
 

5 We sent a lot of sheet and 

6 plate to them. I'd say stuff from aught 16 to up to 

7 seven or eight inches thick out to them. And whenever 

8 -- whenever it came back if it was sheath they just 

9 weighed it and put it off to the side. But if it was 

10 plate -­ was the head of metals for Dow, 

11 and was the head of sales for Dow -­

12 they'd both be down there. 

13 And when we unloaded the truck for plate 

14 they'd weigh it, put it right on a wagon, and they 

15 shipped to casting. And from there I don't know where 
16 it went to or what they did with it over there. But 

17 every time any scrap came back them two guys were 

18 there to make sure it got weighed and shipped over 

19 t~ere. 

20 MR. PHILLIPS: So you shipped material to 

21 Rocky, and you received scrap back from Rocky. Is 

22 that what I'm hearing? 

23 Yeah. They'd send stuff back. 

24 A lot of it was machined out different shapes and 

25 that. I don't know what they did with it or what they 

0156 

1 were making with it or nothing like that. But they'd 
 

2 -- they'd ship a lot of the scrap back to us. 
 

3 MR. PHILLIPS: But you -- you were 
 

4 personally involved in the -- the shipping of the 
 

5 material? 
 

6 I -- I was a crate builder, 
 

7 and I'd be on, you know, tearing the blocking off -­


8 off the trucks and that while they were unloading it. 
 

9 MR. PHILLIPS: And you knew it was thorium 
 

10 or at least something and you had to mark it as -- as 

11 radioactive? 

12 It had Rocky Flats wrote on 

13 it. 

14 MR. PHILLIPS: And you had to mark it as 

15 radioactive? I mean, the the red tags you were 

16 talking about. 

17 I I'd put them on there or 

18 the crew leader would put it on there when we were 

19 shipping out there. And some of it would have -- you 

20 know, some of the skids would have the markings 

21 radioactive materials on it, most of it didn't. When 

22 it came back it was just throwed on the truck any way 

23 they could get it on there and ship it back. 

24 MR. PHILLIPS: Do you ever recall shipping 

25 thorium metal or only alloy? 

0157 

1 It would -- all -- all we knew 

2 is HK or HM. 

3 MR. PHILLIPS: And again, this was '62 to 

4 '75 time frame? 

5 Yeah. Sometimes I got bumped 

6 out of shipping for a couple of -- maybe a month or 

7 two. But most of the time I was down there during 

8 that period. In '75 I went to the pickle line, so I 

9 left the shipping area. Then on the pickle line I'd 

10 get, you know, to run the thorium through the pickle 

11 line for shipping. So I don't know how they shipped 
12 it from there and that. 

13 MR. PHILLIPS: You're saying -- you're -­

14 You're talking about the 

15 stuff that we salvaged in the -- we'd remark pickle 

16 and roll and all that? You were talking about that? 

17 Yeah. 

18 ': Well, a lot of that metal 

19 went over to McDonnell Aircraft and went into the 

20 Gemini program at the time when McDonnell was involved 

21 in making -­

22 Space. 

23 Yeah, space -- involved in 

24 space. I was an inspector over there at the time, and 

25 those sheets were like 180 inches long and -- and 

0158 

1 maybe -- there's a 180 thousandths was the thickness 

2 that was shipped out on most of it. We had to mike 

3 (phonetic) them all over that they had to be within a 

4 given gauge, and it's pretty tight. 

5 And to get it to that point you started 

6 out first of all with sheets that were probably 

7 five-eighths of an inch thick. And we would put them 

8 in the sonic tank to find out where the bad spots 

9 were, cut them out so they wouldn't have to -­

10 wouldn't -- that wouldn't be involved. Well, then 

11 they'd roll and keep on rolling them down. Every time 

12 they rolled them they'd send it to inspection. We'd 

13 mark out the spots. They'd send them over to the 

14 salvage area. They would grind out the dirt and 

15 everything and then back through the pickle line. And 

16 that was that particular operation. Now, I don't know 

17 anything about Rocky Flats. 

18 MR. PHILLIPS: This is HK and HM material? 

19 Beg your pardon? 

20 MR. PHILLIPS: HK and HM material you're 

21 talking about? 

22 Yes. And this was -- most 

23 of that went to McDonnell Aircraft. Of course, that 

24 later become Boeing. But at that particular time we 

25 used to always say McDonnell didn't want anything else 

0159 

1 from our plant. Boeing loved us, but McDonnell hated 

2 us. They wouldn't buy any of our aluminum or anything 

3 like that. But they did this HK and HM. 

4 Now, each time they'd make a 

5 pass on that HK or HM and that they might take 50, 70, 

6 90 passes through there. And after about every three 

7 passes the inspectors had to mark where the dirt was 
8 or where the dings were at in the metal. They'd have 

9 to send it to hand salvage. They'd do it, run it 

10 through the pickle line and right back to the mills in 

11 the same process over and over and over on it. 

12 And wherever they cleaned up like hand 

13 salvage they'd just blow it over to the wall, you 

14 know, and all that dust just blew all over the place. 

15 Especially like in the winter time or if the Dravo 

16 heaters were on, it would just blow that dust over 

17 half the plant -- I mean, half the department down 

18 there. And but 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: The pickle line, is that 

20 acid pickle? 

21 Yeah. 

22 MR. PHILLIPS: So you -- you 

23 What they call A and P or 

24 chrome pickle. 

25 MR. PHILLIPS: Where was that done? 

0160 

1 Where? 
 

2 MR. PHILLIPS: Yes, in the plant. 
 

3 That was just south of 
 

4 North end of the rolling 
 

5 mill. 
 

6 shipping. 
 

7 In the rolling mill? 
 

8 The rolling mill. In the 
 

9 rolling mill. 
 

10 But they did pickle again 

11 in the extrusion as well. But they were dip tanks. 

12 And where he's talking about it would run through as 

13 sheets all the way through. And you had to start it 

14 with the acid and et cetera and then water to wash it 

15 off. And it'd come out the far end and be stacked and 

16 go on with the operation. 

17 I was just trying to figure 

18 out how much thorium we used in a eight-hour shift. 

19 If we put 30 pounds of thorium per pot for ten pots, 

20 that would be approximately a little over 300. Now, 

21 that depends on your -- after your samples from the 

22 lab how much additions you'd have to work with. 

23 Figuring that ten pots would be 300 pounds -­

24 approximately 300 pounds of thorium for those ten pots 

25 -- 6,000 pound pots. If you went on a continuous 

0161 

1 casting, I would have to find out exactly what that 

2 then you start the unit after you get your whole unit 

3 alloyed up, the ten pots. The ten pots all alloyed up 
4 and then you'd start your cast. You average about a 


5 pump -- a pumpover an hour which would be eight -­


6 eight pumpovers a shift. Eight pumpovers a shift 


7 would run you approximately -- I got my figures here 


8 wrong. 


9 MR. PHILLIPS: 2,400 right now. 


10 Huh? 

11 MR. PHILLIPS: 2,400 in three shifts. 

12 Right. That'd be right. 

13 Yeah. So that's a lot of thorium going through that 

14 unit. 

15 MR. PHILLIPS: Four times three is 12 -­

16 ten-eight, am I right? 

17 I can't hear you. 

18 MR. PHILLIPS: 10,800, is that 

19 And then that's just a 

20 estimate on the 30 pounds. It could be 40 pounds or 

21 50, depends on the -- on the analysis that comes back. 

22 And sometimes you lose your thorium for some reason, 

23 you'd pump it loose and that. And it could probably 

24 be sometimes 50 -- 50 pounds. Of course, on the cell 

25 mag -- raw cell mag, magnesium was in the pot. So I 

0162 

1 haven't figured on the -- a 70 run. So you take and 

2 figure that's about 300 pounds per pot for ten -- for 

3 ten pots. 

4 MR. PHILLIPS: So if I understand you, 

5 somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 to 50 pounds of 

6 thorium per pot, ten pots and you cycle eight of those 

7 per -- eight times per shift? 

8 Right. Eight pumpovers per 

9 shift usually. Sometimes it depends on your relief. 

10 Sometimes you might get a nine -- you might get nine 

11 pumpovers, right fellows? 

12 COURT REPORTER: You're saying pumpovers? 

13 Pumping the metal from one pot 

14 to the next, yeah. 

15 MR. PHILLIPS: And you were running three 

16 shifts per day? 

17 Sir? 

18 MR. PHILLIPS: Three shifts per day? 

19 Yes, sir. And some days it's 

20 seven. Like I said when you're on this. metal thorium 

21 they wouldn't take a chance, you know, of not running 

22 it, so you run it seven days. 

23 MR. PHILLIPS: Seven days per week? 

24 Right. 

25 MR. PHILLIPS: And this was pretty much 
0163 

1 for the '60 to '99 time frame? 

2 How much? 

3 MR. PHILLIPS: 1960 to 1999 time frame? 

4 Right. 

5 MR. PHILLIPS: If I multiplied correctly, 

6 it's about 10,800 pounds a day. But that was in my 

7 head so I -­

8 Something like that. That's 

9 what I was doing. And like I said before, we had no 

10 instructions about how to run the -- the cast except 

11 for the instructions we'd get on a sheet every day. 

12 And you run it the same way you run any other metal. 

13 But my concern is the amount of thorium we were using 

14 per shift in there. 

15 And like he said, that stuff 

16 would get lost in the process of melting. And that's 

17 what they dressed out or sludged out. And that -­

18 that's what ended up out there on that big pile. 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: I'm sorry. Say that again. 

20 I understood most of that, but I'm not sure I 

21 understood all of it. 

22 Like a lot of times it would 

23 take 30 pounds to alloy it. 

24 MR. PHILLIPS: Right. 

25 But a lot of times it would 

0164 

1 take 50 pounds because it would burn up and get lost 

2 in there. So when you clean that furnace out from the 

3 bottom up you'd get dross. It's a real heavy sludge 

4 like. And that would be throwed away on that sludge 

5 pile outside. 

6 MR. PHILLIPS: But that would be recycled. 

7 So on the -- on the whole the 30 pounds is probably a 

8 good estimate because you're going to recycle that 

9 that went out. 

10 Yeah. That's true. 

11 MR. PHILLIPS: So it is, that's a 

12 surprising amount of thorium. 

13 More than you think it is. 

14 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. Thank you. That's 

15 instructive. 

16 From my recollection that 

17 thorium in the the ones that come in the floor 

18 notch they were a lot lighter than the ones that came 

19 when we had pellets. The pellets were a little 

20 heavier. But like you said, the pellets went on the 

21 floor when you was shoveling them -- you're shoveling 
22 them in the basket. 

23 So I'd like to emphasize I worked with 

24 that for 36 years because I've changed -- stayed in 

25 that casting part, I didn't work in the warehouse 

0165 

1 (inaudible). And my whole time was spent in that pot 

2 room as a metal caster, a welder, and a crew leader 

3 for the last 15 years. So I was exposed to a lot of 

4 ,radiation I would say. I used my -­ a lot times I 

5 picked it up with my bare hands. I didn't even use my 

6 -­ my cloth gloves. I just picked it up with my bare 

7 hands because I was under the assumption it didn't 

8 hurt me. I have cancer now. 

9 Yeah, I do too. 

10 He does too. 

11 MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you. 

12 And here was hired in 

13 1960, so he misses out on compensation by 

14 days. And I'd like that -­ I just want that 

15 mentioned. He missed it by two months. 

16 Are you counting -­

17 The 250 days you have to have. 

18 Somebody made a point at 

19 one of the meetings that was very important. You 

20 counts days, or you count hours? Because these guys 

21 worked overtime, did you not? Doesn't that make a 

22 difference in their time because don't they say 250, 

23 eight-hour days? 

24 MR. PHILLIPS: Again, I'm -­ I'm out -­

25 I thought I heard that 

0166 

1 discussion at one the meetings. 

2 MR. PHILLIPS: I'm out of the compensation 

3 part of it. I have -­ I have no idea. 

4 Because -­

5 But actually that -­ that is 

6 was a very important point to get on the record. 

7 Oh, it was made at a 

8 meeting. 

9 Well, let's just do that. 

10 Let's expand that a little bit because it is 

11 important. 

12 Sure. 

13 It has got to do with dose 

14 reconstruction, and it has got to do with the -­ the 

15 total exposure over a lifetime. And I -­ and Chick, 

16 as you know there is a -­ a work group who's working 

17 on relatively high exposures that would result in a 
18 compensable dose with respect to the probability of 

19 causation for people who worked at a site less than 

20 250 days. So -­

21 Exactly. 

22 MR. PHILLIPS: I'm aware of that. I'm 

23 just not -­

24 Yeah. But I think what would 

25 be useful, since we have a really broad cross section, 

0167 

1 would you all -- I mean, recognizing that over -­

2 overtime was part of the plan, what would you all say 

3 was your average workweek? I think it'd be useful to 

4 get some assessment of that. 

5 About three shifts a week. 

6 Well, why -- why don't we try 

7 to -- why don't we do it hours per week. 

8 MR. PHILLIPS: Why don't we go in -- why 

9 don't we go in order if we're going to do that so she 

10 we can get a good record of it. Start with you, 

11 

12 Now, what is he talking 

13 about? 

14 MR. PHILLIPS: How much overtime that you 

15 worked. 

16 Yeah, but what's he talking 

17 about? Is he talking about casting? Is he talking 

18 about extrusion or the rolling mill or the whole 

19 plant? 

20 MR. PHILLIPS: Whatever. What was your 

21 average workweek I guess is a good way to do it. 

22 By individuals. 

23 Right. 

24 My -- my individual over 

25 this? 

0168 

1 That's going to be pretty 

2 hard to say because when we had a lot of business we 

3 worked a lot of hours. Then when -- when the business 

4 was slow we just worked a normal 40-hour week. 

5 Well, give a -- give a range 

6 then, I mean, you know a -- what would be a 

7 slow time or an average time and then a high -- high 

8 work time. 

9 Well 

10 We're trying to get a rough 

11 -- here's the point. What NIOSH is going to do as a 

12 default is going to say you all worked 40 hours a 

13 week. Is that accurate? 
14 GROUP: No. 

15 Well, then put on the record 

16 what is in your own words. Why don't we go around the 

17 room. How about you, ? 

18 When I was working in a 

19 union job my hours would normally be -- they would run 

20 48 to 52 hours. 

21 Okay. 

22 I'd say 48. 

23 I didn't turn down much 

24 overtime. I'd say times I worked three weeks in a row 

25 without a day off. I'll bet at least 56 hours a week. 

0169 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: Fifty-six. 

2 Back then we was on tempcon -­

3 in the '60s we worked tempcon shift which was a 

4 seven-day week. So we could work as much as 64 hours 

5 a week on over -- counted as overtime on that. 

6 MR. PHILLIPS: That would be like the 

7 high, right? 

8 That'd be like three doubles a 

9 week. And a lot of times four doubles if they didn't 

10 have nobody to cover. So on the average probably 64 

11 hours a week when we ran hard alloys. 

12 : I would say 64 if you were on 

13 the tempcon shift. And there -- there was times when 

14 we was on this -- this thorium that I -- the crew 

15 leader didn't show up and everything I'd work 16 hours 

16 on it several times. If your relief didn't show up, 

17 you had to -- you had to stay. 

18 MR. PHILLIPS: , did you we get you in 

19 there? 

20 No. About 64 hours a week. 

21 I'd say 56 hours a week. 

22 I had at least 56 a week. 

23 About the same. 

24 I'd say about the same 

25 because they extended the workweeks in extrusion where 

0170 

1 you had to work every Saturday whether you wanted to 
 

2 or not unless it was an absentee. 
 

3 About 60 hours a week. 
 

4 MR. PHILLIPS: Sixty. 
 

5 Same here. 
 

6 About 50 hours a week, in that 
 

7 neighborhood. 
 

8 COURT REPORTER: About 50? 
 

9 .. Fifty. 
 
10 Well, in '54 and in '55 we ran 

11 a lot of overtime. And I remember I worked a lot of 

12 doubles, as many as I think four in a week. But I 

13 know I worked a lot of threes. So I ranged from 40 to 

14 64. And I'd use an average that these guys are using, 

15 probably 56 hours a week on the average. 

16 MR. PHILLIPS: 

17 I'd say about 50. 

18 I'd say about 56. 

19 It's hard for me to put a 

20 number on it because I went to extrusion and was on 

21 tempcon. Now, tempcon is seven days in a row, 24 

22 hours off, another seven, 24 hours off and another. 

23 And you're changing shifts. And when I got over there 

24 I had vacation so I was away on vacation for a week. 

25 I came back and they asked me to work overtime every 

0171 

1 day. And in 1988 I had to go to a doctor to get 

2 excused from working overtime. So to tell you that it 

3 was 48, 50, 60, whatever I couldn't put a number on it 

4 because it varied so much. In a -- in a matter of 39 

5 years you're talking a lot of time and ups and downs 

6 and everything. So I'm going to say 60 hours. 

7 I'd say 52. 

8 Except for tempcon I'd say 

9 that's close, 50. 

10 Under Dow the first week of 

11 the month they cut all overtime down. You'd probably 

12 just work 48 hours. The second week you probably 

13 worked 48 hours. The third week you'd probably work 

14 maybe 60 hours, and the fourth week it would be 

15 nothing for people to work 80 hours. And then when 

16 they were on tempcon the guys worked, you know, around 

17 the clock like. And it's hard to say what they were 

18 doing, you know. So it -- it is really hard for -­

19 you know, to say exactly, you know, give a amount of 

20 time. But it they worked a lot of overtime down 

21 there, worked in all departments and everywhere else 

22 overall. 

23 MR. PHILLIPS: What is tempcon? 

24 Tempcon is where you work like 

25 seven days, then you're off a day. Then you worked 

0172 

1 seven four to 12s, then you were off two days. And 

2 then you worked seven midnights, then you're off five 

3 -days. 

4 Four days. 

5 Four days, yeah. Okay. They 
6 call it five. But a lot of times they'll work you 

7 even that time when you were off, you know. And then 

8 when you're on the tempcon 

9 That's a lot of hours.­

10 you're -- you're still 

11 working two and three shifts of overtime during that 

12 part of the time. 

13 On tempcon every third week 

14 was a six-day week. 

15 There you go. 

16 Well, when you went from four 

17 to 12 to your midnight shift or your last of your day 

18 shift to four to 12 that was your six-day week. You 

19 got paid for six days. Okay. So you worked Monday 

20 and Tuesday days, you was off Wednesday, then you 

21 worked Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday four to 

22 12. That's a six-day week. It's probably like that 

23 every third week. 

24 MR. PHILLIPS: I hope this is on the 

25 record because I don't understand. 

0173 

1 How that worked out was 

2 that there was four shifts 

3 Four crews. 

4 -- four crews working 21 

5 hours -- or 21 days in a 28-day cycle. And that kept 

6 the -- the equipment running continuously. 

7 Continuous operation. 

8 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. All right. That's 

9 as close as I'll get. 

10 Continuous. 

11 MR. PHILLIPS: A lot of -- a lot of work. 

12 Okay. 

13 You look tired. Are we 

14 wearing you out with all these hours? 

15 MR. PHILLIPS: I didn't sleep last night, 

16 I'm not sure why. 

17 What they're saying then on 

18 that 60 hours and 70 hours that you're saying don't 

19 count like in '60 1960 if a guy had a lot of 

20 overtime if you count the hours, he got it. But they 

21 count days, so that -- that makes a difference. 

22 No. They don't necessarily 

23 count days if I understood the conversation. And I 

24 have to check the transcript, but I thought at the 

25 Naperville board meeting there was a discussion about 

0174 

1 this or it was going to be looked into. It was at one 
2 of the board meetings I attended, and I can look up 
 

3 those records. 
 

4 MR. PHILLIPS: But this is an area I know 
 

5 absolutely nothing about. I'm -­


6 Right. 
 

7 MR. PHILLIPS: -- I'm just listening. 
 

8 Pretty interesting. 
 

9 MR. PHILLIPS: I -- I know the 250 hours, 
 

10 I know what that means, but I -- I have not been 

11 involved in anything beyond that. So -­

12 Just as a summary statement 

13 then we had comments from 19 people who said they 

14 worked between 48 and 60 hours a week. So that's 

15 considerably beyond a 40-hour week. Okay. 

16 It was a lot easier to 

17 work overtime than it was to hire that that other 

18 employee that would take up the work. It cost the 

19 company a lot less money. 

20 All companies do that though. 

21 I've worked at five or six different plants. All 

22 companies do that. 

23 Right. 

24 :: Steel mills, the Western right 

25 down the street here, all of them do that. 

0175 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. Where are we? Do we 
 

2 need to take a break? 
 

3 Yeah. 
 

4 MR. PHILLIPS: Yeah. Okay. Twenty-five 
 

5 after. Let's do -- is ten minutes enough? Well, we 
 

6 got two bathrooms. Twenty of. 
 

7 
 

8 (Whereupon, a short recess was taken.) 
 

9 

10 MR. PHILLIPS: Before we get started 

11 Debbie I think who most of you know has joined us and 

12 she would like to say a word. 

13 I just wanted to say hi. 

14 I'm Deb Detmers, the district director for Congressman 

15 Shimkus, and I know a lot of you guys because we've 

16 worked together on -- on this for some time. 

17 and I've known for my whole life I think now is 

18 what it's been. 

19 Six years. 

20 MS. DETMERS: Oh, just six years. Okay. 

21 But it feels like -- yeah -- it does kind of feel like 

22 a lifetime. I just wanted to say hi. I'm just going 

23 to sit back and listen. And they tell me you guys are 
24 telling them a lot of good information today so just 
 

25 keep it up. And I know it's been a long day, so 
 

0176 
 

1 thanks for being here. 

2 Tell Shimkus hi. 

3 MS. DETMERS: We will. 

4 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. I'm not sure where 

5 we were to be honest with you. Are we to the point 

6 where we get to the specific questions and see if that 

7 prompts anything? Or is there other things, Bill or 

8 anybody, that you think we need to go into further on 

9 the thorium and the processing and that? 

10 Let's go -- let's talk about 

11 the explosions we had in the pot room. 

12 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

13 We can all tell you a lot 

14 about those. 

15 MR. PHILLIPS: All right. 

16 We did a lot of running in the 

17 pot room. If anything cold goes in the magnesium, it 

18 goes sky high, you know. 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: All right. 

20 And somebody talked about the 

21 dust and -- in the plant. Was that, right 

22 60,000 pounds of dust was removed from a certain part 

23 of the plant? 

24 Was it 60? I don't -- I don't 

25 have that in front of me right now, but it was a lot. 

0177 

1 But anyway, I've got scars all 

2 over my back from running from the metal, and not 

3 necessarily thorium metal but other metals too. And I 

4 know sure that other fellows has been burned by the -­

5 that thorium metal, but I never was that I can think 

6 of. I never had my scars checked. But it was a very 

7 dangerous place to work, we all realized that. And so 

8 a lot of explosions was unnecessary because it was 

9 carelessness on our part and a lot of it was 

10 horseplay. 

11 MR. PHILLIPS: I didn't hear that. 

12 But that -- that does happen. 

13 When you get a bunch of young men -- old men trying to 

14 be young men (inaudible). But any of you boys got any 

15 say about some of the explosions that we had? I had a 

16 bad one when I was notified when I was a 

17 to go down the basement and check a unit, it was about 

18 to bottom out. And I got the wrong information and I 

19 kept running the one unit because I said we got plenty 
20 of time because my caster told me that it was 

21 so-and-so unit. Well, it was just the opposite. 

22 And about five minutes later that unit 

23 made a cut. I t.hought it had -- had a lot of time to 

24 make the cut and it didn't because he had -- supposed 

25 to have it slowed down from three inches a minute to 

0178 

1 one-five. So all hell broke loose, and my -- the 

2 sawyer in the basement said let's go over on the step. 

3 In the meantime, it blew me against a wall, and it 

4 blew the big elevator doors plum off of the elevator 

5 and knocked me out. And the guy -- the operator and 

6 sawyer carried me up the steps and I was unconscious 

7 for a few minutes. But that was just one of them. 

8 The guy I was working with hit the cast 

9 when it started -- blew the floor piece right out from 

10 under his feet right out into the middle of the aisle, 

11 terrific explosion. And there's -- that's just only 

12 one example. Every one of us has been through a lot 

13 of explosions that worked at the casting department. 

14 When was that, ? 

15 Huh? 

16 When was that do you think 

17 maybe? 

18 Oh my, I wish you hadn't asked 

19 me that. What was the time? I would say it was in 

20 the 70's. (phonetic) was my metal 

21 caster. 

22 COURT REPORTER: Who was your metal 

23 caster? 

24 was my metal 

25 caster. 

0179 

1 ? 

2 He lives in 

3 Granite City I think. Matter of fact, he won't speak 

4 to me today for some reason. 

5 To change' the subject a little 

6 bit, do you have any questions for us that any of us 

7 could ask or answer for you? 

8 MR. PHILLIPS: Yeah. I have a list of 

9 questions here that relate a lot of it back to our 

10 review of the -- the SEC petition and the evaluation 

11 by NIOSH of that. We -- we independently reviewed 

12 that evaluation by NIOSH, and we have some questions 

13 regarding the process and other things. So I have 

14 those specific questions. But I sort of asked mine as 

15 I went along through what we did. So I don't have any 
16 questions in general, but I have these specific 

17 questions that I'd like for us to -- to cover. 

18 Chick, may I ask you a 

19 question in regard to that? You know, John Mauro 

20 brought a draft of your report to the last board 

21 meeting, but we have never seen that report. Is that 

22 in kind of final form or -­

23 MR. PHILLIPS: It's -- it's close to being 

24 final and that's what I'm trying to get the answers to 

25 

0180 

1 Okay. 

2 MR. PHILLIPS: -- in order to finalize it. 

3 I have a -- but this is a -- you can see it's -- it's 

4 not final, but it's close. 

5 But -- but we will get a copy 

6 when the final report comes out; is that right? 

7 MR. PHILLIPS: Absolutely. Absolutely. 

8 Okay. All right. Okay. 

9 I'd like to make a comment on 

10 what was I think what he was trying to 

11 say is that by the time that the radioactive dust was 

12 removed from the beams in the cleanup in I believe it 

13 was 19 -- was it '98 was the radiological survey, the 

14 cleanup happened closer to 2000, right? 

15 MR. PHILLIPS: Correct. 

16 By that time there were various 

17 things that happened that knocked a lot of that dust 

18 off. So by by the time they actually did a cleanup 

19 very little of the dust was actually, in their minds, 

20 still -- still present on the beams because of the 

21 explosions, because of cranes moving back and forth 

22 through the building, because of men getting up and 

23 working in the rafters or working on the cranes that a 

24 lot of dust had already been replaced. 

25 And I had one man -- and I don't have -- I 

0181 

1 don't remember who made the statement to me -- but he 

2 said that on one of the times whenever there was a 

3 plant shutdown kind of thing that he walked in and 

4 there was t.his company called Smart Company, 

5 S-M-A-R-T. Right, is it Smart Company? And I don't 

6 know what they were contracted to do normally, but he 

7 said that he was surprised that this company was up in 

8 the rafters actually trying to vacuum dust off the 

9 rafters, and this was prior to the cleanup. And I -­

10 I can look up his information and try to find who made 

11 that statement to me. But am I right on what I said? 
12 Yes? Okay. 

13 MR. PHILLIPS: This was prior to the 

14 FUSRAP Corps cleanup in -­

15 Yes. 

16 MR. PHILLIPS: 2000 or whenever? 

17 Yes. 

18 MR. PHILLIPS: Was that 2000? Is that the 

19 right time? 

20 Pretty close. 

21 That's when the final report 

22 came out, riqht. 

23 Maybe '98, wasn't it? 

24 Right. 

25 When I first hired in in 

0182 

1 the plant I was in the labor,pool. And I can remember 

2 like on a Saturday where we worked overtime some 

3 laborers, and we worked up over the top of the pots 

4 cleaning up the residue on the steel work above it. 

5 So it'd been -­ this we're talking 1953. This has 

6 been going on some time. 

7 That the rafters had been 

8 either cleaned up or -­ or shaken clean? 

9 In the '60s and the '80s they 

10 blew the roof off that building at least two or three 

11 times to where the rain and that and everything got 

12 washed off then, you know. 

13 And then told me one 

14 time he -­ he actually took a hose up there and blew 

15 dust off the rafters -­

16 Did that a couple times. 

17 -­ because he -­ because -­

18 take it. 

19 Well, we were in -­ we were 

20 working in the dust, you know, and getting dust all 

21 over you. And we were cleaning -­ well, I was talking 

22 to you about fire checks. All that dust is going 

23 right back down into the fire checks, and we couldn't 

24 get them clean. So I just cleaned -­ you know,-blew 

25 everything off. And they didn't like it, but at least 

0183 

1 we had a kind of clean place to -­

2 How long did that last after 

3 you cleaned it off, build up? 

4 About two months, three months 

5 it was the same way. 

6 So by the time they actually 

7 did a cleanup it had already been shaken off there or 
8 cleaned off there or vacuumed or blown off -­

9 Quite a few times. 

10 -- quite a few times. Another 

11 thing is you're talking 50 years of constant 

12 contamination through working in the thorium. I'll 

13 shut up. 

14 How long did the baskets and 

15 all the equipment have thorium on it? After we got 

16 done with that metal we'd just go right into another 

17 metal. So actually, the equipment would still be 

18 contaminated because it was used in the metal like the 

19 pumps and the fork truck, the sludgers that went down 

20 inside the metal. That stuff would all stay 

21 contaminated. 

22 Yeah. But you took it back to 

23 the pump wash and washed it, but you only washed it 

24 off with flux. 

25 Yeah. That's just flux. 

0184 

1 That's just to get -- mostly to eat it up, not to 
 

2 that's what usually all that was. 
 

3 Yeah. 
 

4 We had a -- we used to 
 

5 ship forging ingots out of extrusion, different 
 

6 alloys. And we had a man that operated the scalper. 
 

7 Now, his name was, what, (phonetic)? 
 

8 
 

9 Anyhow, 
 

10 several years ago away he filed a a lawsuit against 

11 Dow because he was having lung problems. And of 

12 course, he was thinking it was from the from the dust 

13 from -- just mag dust, you know, that he had been 

14 breathing in all that time. But this piece of 

15 equipment was sitting real close to the press that 

16 we've been talking about that was so hot. And anyhow, 

17 the man died pretty young, a fair -- what I consider a 

18 young age. I think he was in his 50s when he died of 

19 cancer and he lost his lung. 

20 Now, I would like -- we -- the way we 

21 determined the -- the die number of a particular 

22 forging ingot was by the diameter of it. And it would 

23 be -- I don't remember the -- it seemed like it was a 

24 900 series. If it's like 13 inches wide or diameter, 

25 well, it'd be -- the die number would be 9013. Or if 

0185 

1 it's 20 inches, well, it'd be a 9020. But he had to 

2 scalp all this to where they were clean, you know, the 

3 -- from the -- so what I'm saying is that did these 
4 forging ingots that we were shipping out that -- I 

5 don't know whether they were thorium or anything else, 

6 I don't remember. 

7 But I do know that -- that this man did 

8 die from cancer and he also sued the company. And I 

9 think he lost his lawsuit, but he sued Dow. And my 

10 opinion is probably he had the same problem that we're 

11 talking about here today; that it was from radiation 

12 more than anything else. But he did have cancer 

13 He did have cancer? 

14 -- and it was lung. 

15 That man was my -­

16 Beg pardon? 

17 That man was my elementary 

18 school teacher's husband. And whenever I mentioned 

19 him to a few of the people here they always said that 

20 it was magnesium poisoning in the lungs that they 

21 thought. And I'm trying to reach that family because 

22 -- because it was my teacher's husband. So anyway, 

23 that's just a side point. 

24 I'd like to -- I don't know if you guys 

25 mentioned the two guys that everybody seems to have 

0186 

1 talked about and have been shocked about these two 


2 gentlemen, (phonetic) -­


3 We talked about them some. 


4 -- and and they both 


5 worked on the same press and they both died of brain 


6 cancer, what, within a couple months of each other? 


7 That was brought up? 


8 MR. PHILLIPS: Yeah. 


9 They spent their whole 


10 careers on 7 Press. 

11 Whole careers on 7 Press? 

12 Yes. Yes. 

13 Okay. And there was -- so 

14 anyway, I just wanted to make sure that that was 

15 brought up because everybody seemed to be so concerned 

16 about those two individuals. 

17 I was wondering why the 

18 Corps of Engineers said that that plant co.uldn' t 

19 really be cleaned up; that there was only two or three 

20 alternate things they could do, they could take and 

21 tear it down or they could do as good as they could 

22 with the dust, or they could sprinkle stuff on it and 

23 seal it over. But if it was too hard to get it, it'd 

24 still be there, it'd be there forever. And that's 

25 more or less why they did such a poor job when it got 
0187 

1 rejected a few years back. So how are they cleaning 

2 it up now any differently? 

3 MR. PHILLIPS: I don't -- I'm going to 

4 have to be very honest with you. I -­

5 But they have been -- they 

6 have been attempting to clean up what they didn't do. 

7 But then if it was clean, why are they doing it again 

8 then? 

9 MR. PHILLIPS: I'll be very honest with 

10 you where -- where I am right now. I told you I -- I 

11 got involved in this about a month ago and I was doing 

12 -- and it's no excuse. That's one part of this that I 

13 have not gotten into is the -- is the Corps of 

14 Engineers -- you know, the whole FUSRAP thing. I -- I 

15 have those reports, but I have not gone into that. So 

16 I can't intelligently speak to it right now to just be 

17 straightforward. If you have a comment on that, 

18 please -- please -­

19 I do have a -- I have a 

20 comment that hopefully will be helpful to you because 

21 I think it -- it actually comes down to the core of 

22 our extended SEC. And that is that when the Army 

23 Corps of Engineers came in to remediate that was done 

24 under FUSRAP, and FUSRAP is basically a Department of 

25 Energy program. And the reason that Dow is a FUSRAP 

0188 

1 site at all under the DOE is because of the uranium 

2 contract with Mallinckrodt. 

3 So the history of that was that the 

4 Department of Energy looked at a lot of sites that had 

5 AEC, Atomic Energy Commission contracts and -­ and 

6 wanted to see which of them needed to be remediated 

7 and the -­ the AEC work cleaned up. And so that's 

8 what brought the Army Corps of Engineers to the Dow 

9 Madison site. There had been a survey, a radiologic 

10 survey of the site in 1989 by Oak Ridge National 

11 Laboratory, and they found they did a very narrow 

12 survey. 

13 MR. PHILLIPS: I did see that. I'm sorry. 

14 I have seen that. 

15 Yeah. 

16 MR. PHILLIPS: That's where we found the 

17 dust on the rafters, right? 

18 Right. 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

20 And they only looked in 

21 Building 6. 
22 MR. PHILLIPS: Yes. 

23 So for instance -­ yeah. So 

24 above the extrusion presses. So they didn't even look 

25 in the rolling mill where the -­ where the uranium 

0189 

1 rods were -­ were straightened. That -­ that part of 

2 the plant wasn't examined. But in any case, they came 

3 there, they found that uranium dust and thorium dust 

4 were in the same rafters nearby one another. 

5 And then in the interim between 1989 and 

6 the time it was cleaned up the program for active 

7 remediation got removed from Department of Energy to 

8 the Army Corps of Engineers, and that's what brought 

9 the Army Corps of Engineers there. And the Army Corps 

10 of Engineers made a judgment in their report -­ and 

11 this is really the actually most crucial sentence in 

12 any document that applies to this entire thing and why 

13 we're here today. They made the statement that none 

14 of the thorium activities at Dow were related to AEC 

15 activities, period. 

16 And so ! knew about that a long time ago. 

17 And Deb Detmers and Robert Stephen and myself and 

18 in June -­ in so long ago of 2005 now, we 

19 went down to the Army Corps of Engineers and 

20 interviewed them about this specific point. 

21 MR. PHILLIPS: I saw that too. 

22 And -­ right. And the -­

23 their assistant attorney is a man named 

24 (phonetic). And so my question to was please 

25 tell me how you all could make such a statement, what 

0190 

1 was your primary documentation for it. And I said you 

2 simply can't say that without being able to support 

3 it. And so he replied back and basically cited the 

4 FUSRAP cleanup report, the final report in 2000 but 

5 could not cite any other primary document. So -­ so 

6 anyway, that's where that rested. 

7 And then, you know, as you know today and 

8 you've heard the same testimony today, we have a 

9 number of people here who say that Dow Madison sent 

10 thorium alloys to Rocky Flats, Los Alamos. I showed 

11 the board -­ you all have a copy of it -­ a purchase 

12 order that said they sent thorium alloys -- we think 

13 they are thorium alloys, they're certainly magnesium 

14 alloys to Mallinckrodt. 

15 And so, you know, we take a different 

16 view. We think we have positive evidence from the 

17 workers, lots of workers -- and you've heard it again 
18 today -- that in fact some of the thorium work at Dow 

19 Madison was related to AEC facilities and done under 

20 contract to them. 

21 So the -- the other missing part of the 

22 picture is this -- part of the answer to this question 

23 is you've also heard that thorium, huge amounts of it 

24 were processed throughout the plant. And so you got 

25 two different views of the world, one is FUSRAP and 

0191 

1 this very limited cleanup that they did just in 

2 Building 6 based on the uranium work. They knew the 

3 thorium was there, they measured the thorium in 

4 Building 6, it was in the dust, but they left it in 

5 place. 

6 Then you fast forward to 2003 

7 approximately and now Spectrulite decides that they 

8 want to terminate their thorium license at the Dow 

9 Madison plant. And so to do that you have go through 

10 a decommissioning process. And so to do that they 

11 hired a company called Pangea Group which is based in 

12 St. Louis, an environment remediation group. 

13 And so Pangea Group comes in and does 

14 three reports that I'm aware of; two of which I've 

15 read, one in 2003 and then in 2005 in March and June 

16 they do a very complete radiologic survey for thorium 

17 and -- and other radioactivity and they do a physical 

18 inventory of the entire Dow plant for thorium metal 

19 and thorium metal alloys. And Pangea Group now, 

20 unlike the Army Corps of Engineers, finds thorium all 

21 throughout the plant in many buildings. And I -- I 

22 presented that evidence to the board in both February 

23 and again May 4th. And now we know that Pangea Group 

24 is in the middle of actually remediate -- doing the 

25 final remediation of all this material. 

0192 

1 Well, when I first heard that I basically 

2 went wild because here we have thorium that's all over 

3 the place except -- and it's been well documented now 

4 radiologically throughout the plant. The Pangea Group 

5 was not doing anything active about the beryllium 

6 which is another process. So we have Pangea Group 

7 that's cleaning up the place and obviously has lots of 

8 relevant data about what they've cleaned up, how much 

9 radioactivity they've found, and so forth and 

10 undoubtedly has a large amount of information related 

11 to this plant. 

12 And so part of what I've been urging 

13 NIOSH, Department of Labor in particular is to contact 
14 Pangea Group and to get their information about the 

15 cleanup and what they're doing and what they've found 

16 and what the levels are and where the contamination is 

17 as a follow up to their 2005 and 2003 reports. And 

18 thus far I think it's fair to say, for reasons that 

19 are completely mysterious to me, NIOSH has failed to 

20 -- has been unwilling to follow up and find out what 

21 Pangea is doing now, what their information is. 

22 So I just wanted to put that on the 

23 record. I -- I think again we have documentation that 

24 could fill out this story. And so what I feel is I 

25 think that where things are today is we have very 

0193 

1 strong evidence that the Dow Madison plant made huge 

2 amounts of thorium magnesium alloys and shipped 

3 truckload quantities over a long period of time to at 

4 least three installations. We have the best data 

5 about Rocky Flats as far as amounts of thorium alloy. 

6 We have some information about Los Alamos and some 

7 about Mallinckrodt which got shipped relatively small 

8 amounts. 

9 The part for Mallinckrodt was particularly 

10 relevant because that happened in 1958, '59 during the 

11 Mallinckrodt uranium work. And so if -- if that's 

12 acceptable evidence, then it means that the thorium 

13 and the uranium were related to AEC activities and 

14 then that has implications for this 1961 to 1998 

15 period. 

16 So you know, I think we have strong 

17 evidence. I think there's additional evi.dence that 

18 could be found at Pangea Group, Madison site, and Dow 

19 Midland. I'm going to be urging that both SC&A and -­

20 and NIOSH follow up on that information and try to 

21 try to get at it and try to get access to it. But 

22 I -- that's really a little bit beyond my control. 

23 But I just I just thought that that's what needs to 

24 be done. 

25 I -- I personally believe that FUSRAP and 

0194 

1 the Army Corps made a mistake in 1998. I think they 

2 made a hasty decision that was probably erroneous and 

3 that was I believe that they should have cleaned up 

4 the thorium and the uranium at the plant, and I think 

5 they should have done their survey and their cleanup 

6 all over the plant, not just in Building 6. 

7 And I further think that it's -- it's 

8 actually more serious than that because the purchase 

9 orders that showed the thorium going to Mallinckrodt 
10 were in the same batch of purchase orders that showed 

11 the Mallinckrodt work under the same contract with Dow 

12 Madison, you know, for the uranium work. So the 

13 uranium and the thorium were done contemporaneously 

14 for Mallinckrodt, and I think they should have all 

15 been lumped into the cleanup, but that's -- that's 

16 past history. Whether the Army Corps would ever go 

17 back in again I -- I doubt it because of the work 

18 that's going on with Pangea right now. 

19 But we will not get a complete picture 

20 about this site until we get into the plant and -- and 

21 get Pangea Group and get Spectrulite and the lawyers 

22 and the people at Dow Midland to cooperate with us. 

23 And I just need to put on the record that 

24 for months now I've been urging that a tool to 

25 accomplish this is actually contained in the act, and 

0195 

1 that tool is the subpoena power the Department of 

2 Labor has to get records and to compel private 

3 companies to produce records. And so I urged a long 

4 time ago that the Department of Labor subpoena Pangea 

5 Group and -- and Spectrulite and Dow Midland all of 

6 which are private companies to produce those records. 

7 And I -- I am going to continue until we go to the 

8 board meeting to vote in July. 

9 So that's a -- in a way I apologize, but 

10 that's really the answer to this question about why 

11 the thorium wasn't cleaned up. 

12 I've also urged -- I've gave the board and 

13 NIOSH the names of the folks downtown in St. Louis at 

14 the Army Corps of Engineers and Mr. wanch and his boss 

15 who should be interviewed I believe and, you know, 

16 asked about the thorium not being related to AEC 

17 activities. And we -- we've done that, we've already 

18 talked to them. And my view is they can't provide 

19 justification for that statement. 

20 So I guess that's the point I'm going to 

21 make to the board when we meet with them in July that, 

22 you know, we've done our homework. we've gone and 

23 talked to all the people. We've sought the records. 

24 I think we have tried as hard as we can to get that 

25 information. Now I think it's up to the agencies, and 

0196 

1 I -- I strongly urge that that be done. Anyway 
 

2 I have a question for 
 

3 
 

4 Yeah. 
 

5 Are you saying that Dow 
 
6 Chemical is still connected with the thorium that was 

7 produced in there by Spectrulite? Is that what you're 

8 trying to say? I -- I missed some of that statement. 

9 Well, the way I look at it 

10 it's all a big continuum. 

11 Okay. That's just what I 

12 wanted -- that's all I wanted to know. 

13 Exactly. I mean, the -- and 

14 just to finish the continuum Dow, Conalco, and 

15 Spectrulite have been continuously licensed to produce 

16 and handle thorium of the same kinds, amounts, and 

17 types from at least 1956 until today. They're still 

18 licensed. The license has not been terminated. And 

19 in 1993 when they cleaned up the 40-acre plot of all 

20 that thorium sludge 

21 Right. 

22 -- 850 railroad cars full. 

23 Right. 

24 ,. I asked -- we asked the 

25 people at Dow how come did you all pay for that. Dow 

0197 

1 absolutely says they did not own that plot after 1973, 

2 did not own it. And yet in the lawsuit that came up 

3 about cleaning up and who was going to pay for all 

4 that involved that, an insurance company. You know, 

5 who wound up paying was Conalco which also didn't own 

6 the 40-acre plot and Dow which also didn't own the 

7 40-acre plot and yet they paid $17 million to clean it 

8 up. 

9 There's -- there's no proof 

10 that -- we were always told that Dow owned that parcel 

11 and Spectrulite did not. 

12 Well, Dow's -- Dow's chief 

13 lawyer, from Kirkland & Ellis absolutely 

14 declares that's not true. 

15 It's not true? 

16 And -- and they were just 

17 being good citizens. Now, you and I all know that 

18 they were being good citizens because a court could 

19 order them to pay the -- I mean, the court -- they 

20 did, they went to court and that -- that's what the 

21 court said, you have to. So they were paying their 

22 share of the cleanup. 

23 Not true. They tried to sue 

24 their insurance companies to -­

25 : Yeah. 

0198 

1 -- cover their -- their cost of 
2 that half -- their half of that cleanup. 

3 Right. 

4 The case is called Aetna versus 

5 Dow Chemical. And for some-odd reason all the 

6 records, all the exhibits produced by the insurance 

7 company whenever I looked them up on the Pace 

8 (phonetic) report it said sealed and put in the vault 

9 until the last time I went on -- on Pace and checked 

10 it out -- or Pacer and checked it out, then it said 

11 that those exhibits had been returned back to the 

12 insurance companies. 

13 But up until I guess the beginning of 

14 or maybe this time last year or whatever, whatever 

15 those exhibits were produced in that case -- and it 

16 was a 1993 case -- and the judge determined that Dow 

1 7 could not get summary judgment because ·it was a -­

18 they -- they were trying to make the insurance 

19 companies pay. And the judge said that there was so 

20 much contamination and that Dow should have known and 

21 that the insurance company were -- were not liable. 

22 So it's a case to be looked up and to be put on the 

23 record. 

24 My other question is on that article, the 

25 1963 article about the beryllium aluminum alloys it 

0199 

1 says that Dow was granted a -- an exclusive license 

2 and that they -- I would like to see what that -- I'm 

3 a nosey person. I'd like to see what that license 

4 says that was granted to them. But it also says that 

5 actually Beryllium Company -- or Corporation of 

6 Reading, Pennsylvania was granted by Dow a sublicense 

7 that was also exclusive. And I think that it -- in my 

8 mind it would be the Beryllium Corporation granting to 

9 Dow a license, but the article says it the other way 

10 around. 

11 And I was wondering if any of those 

12 licenses if they were produced where we could read 

13 them -- if it would tell any more about what the 

14 products was going to, if it would make an AEC 

15 connection. 

16 , I -- I don't know. I 

17 really don't know what -- I think, you know, to make 

18 any sense out of that 

19 When you read the thorium 

20 license -­

21 Mr. Phillips would have to 

22 -- you would have to write that up because I am still 

23 not aware that beryllium was· licensed per se. 
24 It says that in that article. 

25 Well, you'll have to present 

0200 

1 that. I -- I don't understand that. So you know, I 

2 -- and anyway, our SEC is really not dependant on the 

3 beryllium work. So I think that would be good 

4 information to get on the record. But I'm -- I'm 

5 you know, I have asked the Department of Energy, I've 

6 asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission do they h.ave 

7 any record of any kind of AEC related licenses for 

8 beryllium at Dow, and neither one of them have 

9 produced such. Now, I don't know. 

10 And it doesn't say who -- it 

11 doesn't say where the license was issued from. Could 

12 I give you a copy of that article? 

13 MS. DETMERS: I have a copy. You can send 

14 me a got a copy though. I'll look -- I'll check it 

15 out. 

16 I think you've got Dow -­

17 MR. PHILLIPS: What kind of license are we 

18 talking about? I'm in the dark. 

19 I gave you -- a beryllium 

20 license. I gave you a copy of that article this 

21 morning whenever -­

22 MS. DETMERS: But I don't think -- I don't 

23 think it's clear as to who was issuing the license I 

24 think is the problem. It says that there was a 

25 beryllium license, but I don't think it's clear as to 

0201 

1 who was issuing the license. 

2 MR. PHILLIPS: You don't mean a 

3 radioactive materials license? 

4 It just says beryllium 

5 exclusive beryllium license. It's in a document I 

6 gave you this morning. 

7 Do I have a copy of that? I 

8 -- I can't deal with things that I don't have a copy 

9 of. 

10 MS. DETMERS: Yeah, you do. 

11 Well, where is it? 

12 got it. got this 

13 out of the press record. You've got them. 

14 Dow Chemical Company has been 

15 licensed exclusively to produce and distribute the 

16 alloys under a name of its own choosing -- choice. 

17 Beryllium Corp. of Reading, Pennsylvania has in turn 

18 been granted exclusive sublicense by Dow and is 

19 expected to produce the alloys. 
20 MR. PHILLIPS: That sounds like though 

21 that some other company has licensed them under some 

22 patent that they have to produce and distribute. That 

23 -- that's what it sounds like me, but I really don't 

24 know. 

25 It was developed by Lockheed 

0202 

1 Missiles and Space Company. The alloy series is known 

2 as Lockalloy and contains up to 83 percent beryllium. 

3 Oh, we know about Lockalloy. 

4 MR. PHILLIPS: The -- the way I would 

5 interpret that is that Lockheed has licensed Dow to 

6 produce and distribute and they have sublicensed this 

7 other. But I -- that's a give~. That's a given. 

8 Okay. 

9 Chick, let me -- yeah. I 

10 know all about that. 

11 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

12 Lockalloy was an alloy that 

13 Lockheed developed and then they licensed Dow to start 

14 producing it, and has the newspaper article. We 

15 all know about that. So -- so -- but that's not an 

16 AEC license. 

17 Okay. 

18 But what it does prove -­

19 what it absolutely proves is that -­

20 Beryllium. 

21 -- is that Dow Madison 

22 produced beryllium alloy -- beryllium aluminum alloy 

23 and sold it and marketed it. That -- that's for sure. 

24 And it was for weapons. 

25 And we've got lots of people 

0203 

1 that can't breathe. 

2 And it has got nothing to do 

3 with an Atomic Energy Commission DOE connection at 

4 all. 

5 MR. PHILLIPS: Yeah. Beryllium is not a 

6 -- is not a licensable radioactive material. 

7 No. This is a license to 

8 produce it as a submanufacturer 

9 Okay. 

10 -- and to -- and just what 

11 Chick said, a patent to market their patented product. 

12 , up to 2002 -- January of 

13 2002 Dow was paying for electric for that 40 acres out 

14 there. 

15 Well, what I would say 
16 is actually that would be very useful if we could get 

17 any proof of that. We need proof. we need a bill, a 

18 statement. But we -- we need to have that documented. 

19 I'm the one that took the 

20 readings, and (phonetic) is the one that 

21 sent it to -- faxed it to Dow every month. 

22 Well, we need to see a copy 

23 of those faxes then. I -- I don't -- I mean, I -- I 

24 don't not believe you, but I do know what their lawyer 

25 has said, and he said they don't own the property. So 

0204 

1 I mean, that would be very interesting for everybody 

2 if we could get proof on the other side. 

3 There has to be a deed on that 

4 property somewhere. 

5 , : Somebody owns it. 

6 The county should have a deed 

7 on that property somewhere. 

8 , we have gotten 

9 extensive -- we've done three title searches and have 

10 all the records, and the title searches do not show -­

11 they really don't cover that 40-acre plot as a 

12 separate piece of land, and there is no county records 

13 of Dow owning that property. 

14 Well, who who owns it then? 

15 It's not it's not even 

16 parceled out as separate property. 

17 110 acres. 

18 Well, at one time Dow had 

19 options on where the (inaudible) used to be the old 

20 foundry. 

21 Fox Brothers. 

22 Fox Brothers, they had an 

23 option on that I was told back in those days. I don't 

24 know if there's any truth to that. That was hearsay 

25 then. 

0205 

1 Yes, sir. I'm not sure. 
 

2 That's -- I know what we've done, and we can't prove 
 

3 that. 
 

4 MR. PHILLIPS: I suggest that we -- we 
 

5 leave this -- that particular thing. 
 

6 Yeah. 
 

7 MR. PHILLIPS: Because I don't think it's 
 

8 on the subject. 
 

9 I agree. I agree. 
 

10 MR. PHILLIPS: I'm not sure where 

11 , you asked a question and I guess your response 
12 was to that. Did you are you satisfied with what 

13 you heard on that? 

14 Sure, I got to be. 

15 MR. PHILLIPS: No. I didn't say you had 

16 to be. 

17 I'm -- I've been doing it 

18 for six years. I guess I'm pretty well satisfied. 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: Well, I think -- I think 

20 you know -- and again, I haven't gone in great detail 

21 on -- on this particular part. But I think the 

22 summary that gave is, you know, what has happened 

23 in regard to assessing what the -- what the materials 

24 there and what the cleanup was I think he summarized. 

25 And I -- I guess at this point that's where we are. 

0206 

1 Well, I think -­

2 Is there any way -- since 

3 Shimkus' representative is here -- can help maintain 

4 some of these records that is looking for? 

5 MS. DETMERS: We've been trying for six 

6 years. We've been working on it for six years. We've 

7 got -- I've been working with for this 

8 whole time. I mean, my files are -- I have boxes and 

9 boxes of files, and I don't have a tenth of what 

10 Simmons and Cooper -- without Simmons and Cooper and 

11 without and these guys, without we 

12 wouldn't be this far. 

13 That's what I wanted to hear. 

14 We have other congressmen and senators also, you know. 

15 MS. DETMERS: We work -- I work very 

16 closely with Robert Stephan in Senator Obama's office. 

17 Those two offices are working very closely together. 

18 And when we need letters signed by Congressman 

19 Costello and Senator Durbin they've been very helpful 

20 in signing them. But Robert and I both have been 

21 working very closely on it. 

22 Thank you. 

23 MS. DETMERS: You're welcome. 

24 I would like to know if -­

25 if nobody owns that why did Dow and Consolidated 

0207 

1 Aluminum pay $17 million to have it cleaned up. 

2 Good guys. 

3 That's what wants to 

4 know. It was -- 17 million was just Dow's part. 

5 Conalco paid their 17 million too. So -­

6 More than that then. 

7 Well, I think it's under the 
8 -- the general principal that the polluter -- the 

9 polluter has to pay. And so they were paying -- I 

10 mean, they put it there in the first place, there's no 

11 dispute about that. And so eventually they were 

12 forced to pay. It's as simple as that. It wasn't 

13 strictly volunteer at all. 

14 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

15 I'm curious, how much was 

16 actually -- do you guys know that was -- this is a 

17 goofy question. How much was buried? Do you know 

18 ever -- or have you heard of what was buried out there 

19 because the thing in my mind is you have the river 

20 right underneath there and that water's pushing 

21 whatever's buried up. And so if you guys were walking 

22 -- I might be out of my mind, but if you guys were 

23 walking around the grounds a lot or whatever just 

24 doing your normal job, you're -- you might be also 

25 getting radon gas that was from -- coming up from 

0208 

1 whatever's been buried. 

2 We all three of us know 

3 something. can speak for that. 

4 Okay. What I can tell you 

5 about that was when they would send us out to clean it 

6 once a year, go pick up the metal we was told to pick 

7 up 10,000 pounds of metal, and that was our day. If 

8 we could do it in two hours, we could sit for the rest 

9 of the day. And it would only take us like 45 minutes 

10 to pick up 10,000 pounds of metal and put it in boxes. 

11 So we had a easy day. That's why everybody 

12 volunteered on overtime to go out there. I mean, if 

13 you knew it was radioactive -­

14 On the 40 acres? 

15 I don't know if it was -­

16 You were going out there on the 

17 Dow dump area? 

18 The Dow dump area, yes. 

19 Yes. 

20 The 40 acres he's talking 

21 about. 

22 And you could pick up chunks 

23 of metal this big with a fork truck that weighed like 

24 300 to 500 pounds at a time. And it wouldn't take no 

25 time. And you'd stay out there for a week going out 

0209 

1 there every day. 

2 MR. PHILLIPS: Why -- why did they give 

3 did they give you a reason of why you were limited to 
4 that or expected to do that? Was that a -­

5 Well, they figured it'd take 

6 you eight hours to do it. 

7 MR. PHILLIPS: Pardon? 

8 They figured it would take 

9 about eight hours to pick this up. 

10 MR. PHILLIPS: Oh, so they miscalculated. 

11 You go in there with a 

12 payloader and just go in and start digging and you 

13 could -­

14 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

15 It'd be easier to pick up. 

16 And then two guys would pick it up and put it in 

17 boxes. And we'd bring it into the casting department 

18 and remelt it. And then it was used in different 

19 metals. 

20 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

21 But there was a lot of metal 

22 out there. And the other stuff that was waste it just 

23 stayed there. We piled it up. 

24 And so there were times when 

25 men were sent out there to actually work on the dump 

0210 

1 area and they were being contaminated? 

2 : At least five people would go 

3 out there. 

4 In summer of -­

5 That is a flood plain. 

6 -- of '72 they had a plant 

7 shutdown, and they had a guy dig a deal with a fork 

8 come in with a tractor about maybe 200, 300 hundred 

9 foot long down through there, and we dumped between 

10 ten and 12 slabs -- full slabs down in that ditch. 

11 Slabs of what? 

12 And then behind the -- where 

13 the leach area wa·s to the north end of the pot room 

14 they had probably a hundred or more skids of sludge 

15 stacked in there. And we emptied all that sludge in 

16 the -- in that ditch that he dug up there, and they 

17 buried it. 

18 And then they had a guy from Fox Brothers, 

19 the plant over got burnt with radioactive. And the 

20 Corps of Engineers traced it back to Dow's area. And 

21 they dug up about a hundred barrels of sludge or 

22 whatever it was, you know, out of it right -- they 

23 they knew it was there. And that's on record with the 

24 Edwardsville courthouse, the Corps of Engineers' 

25 statements on that. So there was a lot of it. I 
0211 

1 don't know how much metal would be buried in that 

2 area, but it'd be a lot over many of years. 

3 And so if it's deteriorating 

4 down under the ground and you got the flood that is 

5 a flood plain and the water does come up. 

6 Well, '72 there was no water. 

7 But that's when Granite City Steel was using the well 

8 water. When they quit that all the water level in the 

9 area came up quite a bit. 

10 I know there was a flood in '76 
 

11 because that was my sister's graduation year. 
 

12 Well, the flood water is up 
 

13 higher than what it was then. 
 

14 And those -- those slabs are 
 

15 thorium slabs? 
 

16 I couldn't really tell you if 
 

17 they were thorium or what they would be. 
 

18 . That dross he's talking about 

19 was HM21 or 31. That's where we stacked it at 

20 outside. 

21 Okay. Well, that burial 

22 happened, interesting enough, right before 

23 Phelps-Dodge as -- bought it in '73, right? You said 

24 it -- said that that happened in -­

25 Phelps-Dodge took over in -­

0212 

1 '69 they leased it. 

2 December 29th of '69. 

3 Conalco bought it in '73. 

4 '7 3. 

5 I really 

6 think we're not going to finish. I mean, Chick has 

7 some specific questions, and the disposition of what's 

8 in that plot I really think that's pretty well 

9 documented as to where we stand. And so I think we 

10 ought to go into that at another time. But we kind of 

11 need to move on I think today. 

12 MR. PHILLIPS: And you know, just quick 

13 relative to radon, radon would not be an issue on 

14 that, not from thorium 232. The radon that's 

15 generated in that chain is really short-lived and it 

16 doesn't come out of the ground before it decays. The 

17 radon 222 is something different. The longer-lived 

18 radon's from a different radioactive chain. So we can 

19 talk about that. 

20 I got a question on this 

21 sludge. I was told this, I don't know if it's fact. 
22 But they would take sludge out -- sludge out of that 

23 dump out there and put it -- and take it down to Texas 

24 and throw it -- get it from Dow Chemical's plant, 

25 throw it in the ocean, and that salt water would take 

0213 

1 the flux out of it and the metal would be laying. 

2 They'd pick the metal up and take it back into the 

3 plant and charge it. That salt water would take the 

4 flux out of it. 

5 MR. PHILLIPS: In the record it says it's 

6 in California, but I'm 

7 Maybe it is California 

8 possibly. 

9 MR. PHILLIPS: Yeah. I I -- that's 

10 some -- I think that's in the outreach meeting that's 

11 covered; is that correct? 

12 Yes. Uh-huh. It is, right. 

13 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. All right. Let's 

14 let's get to these questions and see if we can get 

15 some answers. And if they prompt things as we go 

16 along, then we can talk about them. Okay. Somewhere 

17 it's mentioned Building 152. Does anybody know what 

18 that refers to? Is that familiar with anybody? What 

19 have we heard? 

20 You know, I'm thinking that 

21 that must relate to the Bay City plant or something. 

22 Or could it be Rocky Flats? 

23 There's no -- there's no 

24 building that we are there's no building at Dow 

25 Madison like that. 

0214 

1 ': Never was. 

2 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

3 They have numbers that go 

4 where they -- they stop somewhere, or they go from 1 

5 to -­

6 Well, there's 771 and all 

7 that at Rocky Flats. 

8 No. But I'm talking about 

9 Dow Madison now. You all's buildings went up to 22 or 

10 23 or something. 

11 MR. PHILLIPS: Yeah. Bill -- Bill Thurber 

12 (phonetic) actually did this and I got these. But 

13 according to a document -- and I don't know which one 

14 it is, I don't have it listed here -- but he referred 

15 to hardener work being done in Building 152. That 

16 just must be a -­

17 Another site. 
18 MR. PHILLIPS: Could that be -- no, it 
 

19 wouldn't be Building 5. It'd be Building 7 if 
 

20 anything, right? 
 

21 Could be. 
 

22 I don't think I don't 
 

23 think the question relates to Dow Madison is a short 
 

24 answer. 
 

25 I don't either. 
 

0215 
 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. And then I guess the 


2 same for Building 356? 


3 See, thorium fluoride is 


4 as far as I'm aware there was never any thorium 


5 fluoride at Dow Madison. 


6 Yeah. Is that blocksum 


7 (phonetic)? 


8 I don't think that -­


9 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 


10 I don't know what he's 

11 talking about. 

12 MR. PHILLIPS: All right. Well, let's 

13 what about sludge recovery centrifuge locations? 

14 I can answer that. That 

15 sludge recovery centrifuge was that spin job, wasn't 

16 it? They had a -- they had a centrifugal spin. They 

17 would dump hot sludge into that and it'd spin and it 

18 would circle around and all the metal would form in 

19 the middle. You had to break that off and a core of 

20 metal would be in the inside. We had a man that was 

21 injured for life, I think he passed away, had his lip 

22 all ate up. And when it exploded it sent him right 

23 through all the sludge and he laid up in the sludge 

24 and burned his face and everywhere. 

25 MR. PHILLIPS: So they -- at some point 

0216 

1 they were in use at at Dow Madison at where? 

2 In that special room right 

3 outside the -­

4 Right off the pot room. 

5 -- a billet unit. I run it 

6 myself out there. I took the sludge out there. We 

7 had pot and open the bottom up and it'd. go right into 

8 that centrifuge. And they'd turn on this -- there's 

9 no way to regulate the speed. You'd throw it into 

10 high gear. And if she went on spinning as fast as it 

11 could go and that time it blew him -- blew him out. 

12 That ended the sludge recovery that time. But that 

13 had run for quite a while. What was it boys, a year 
14 or two -­ maybe two years? Nobody wanted that job. 

15 MR. PHILLIPS: Do you have any idea what 

16 time frame that was? 

17 It was there in 1960. 

18 Were you around in the '60s? 

19 Well, that's when I got 

20 burned. 

21 ! : I know you did. Yeah. 

22 And it was still there in '62. 

23 Right after got hurt. 

24 Yeah. That was probably put 

25 in about 1959. 

0217 

1 Yeah. 

2 Probably around about three 

3 years. 

4 MR. PHILLIPS: So you'd say '59 to '62? 

5 Right. He was disabled, yeah. 

6 MR. PHILLIPS: And then it was taken out 

7 of the process? 

8 They tore it down and -­ yeah. 

9 They built a new one. 

10 Yeah. built one out 

11 there. 

12 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. Thanks. And I guess 

13 we've really talked about this. Were there other 

14 magnesium alloys other than magnesium thorium alloys 

15 shipped to Rocky Flats. I think we've -­ we've 

16 covered that. 

17 Well -­

18 MR. PHILLIPS: Or have we? 

19 It's important, isn't it? 

20 Well, I think we've covered 

21 it except, you know, I -­ as a more specific answer to 

22 that question I really would refer back to this table 

23 that I have in my presentation to the board which is 

24 at least the official listing from Dow Chemical on the 

25 thorium magnesium alloys. 

0218 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: But does th-at specifically 

2 say they were shipped to Rocky Flats? 

3 No. 

4 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

5 No. It doesn't. But I'm -­

6 that's what I'm saying as far as I know that's the 

7 only table that -- and this table does not say they 

8 were shipped to Rocky Flats at all. 

9 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 
10 We have no -- no document 

11 from Dow that says anything was shipped to Rocky 

12 Flats. 

13 The Rocky Flats, they shipped 

14 the thorium to there. You should have that. You all 

15 have -- I got the guy's name, but I'll have to -­

16 Okay. 

17 find that. I got it over 

18 here somewhere. 

19 MR. PHILLIPS: All right. Do you know 

20 what settings refers to? Does that just mean a group 

21 of connected furnaces? 

22 That's -- that's probably 

23 where they all -- that's the set up on the slab for 

24 the billet unit. 

25 Yeah. The pot 

0219 

1 ': Those ten pots connected 

2 together. 
 

3 
 MR. PHILLIPS: Ten pots referred to as a 

4 setting? 
 

5 
 Yes. 

6 
 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. All right. I 

7 understand. 
 I -- I got that now. 

8 
 Time to produce a magnesium thorium 

9 hardener. 
 Was anybody involved in producing -- are 

10 you familiar with a magnesium thorium hardener, what 


11 it was? 


12 We used a thorium (inaudible). 


13 That's been 17 years. That 


14 was -­ that was the thorium, yes. How often produced, 


15 that depends and I don't know how much orders they had 


16 so it's hard to -- for me to verify that. 


17 We didn't produce the thorium 


18 hardener. 


19 MR. PHILLIPS: That wasn't done at 


20 Madison? 


21 No. No. 


22 We used it. It was -- it was 


23 shipped in. 


24 MR. PHILLIPS: It was shipped for you 


25 guys? 


0220 


1 we didn't we didn't 

2 produce it. 

3 MR. PHILLIPS: Good. We talked about how 

4 often you did -­ you know, you did three -- two to 

5 three sets a day on the -­ the pots, right? 
6 Yeah. 


7 MR. PHILLIPS: And you continually went to 


8 the -­


9 That depends on how much 


10 orders they had and how long they run it. We don't 

11 we wouldn't have that information. 

12 MR. PHILLIPS: All right. So I think all 

13 of that is in what I -- what I need in the record. 

14 And we covered the pickling and I think the -- a group 

15 of settings I understand that now too. So -­

16 There was an aluminum unit -­

17 I mean, a billet unit and the slab unit. 

18 MR. PHILLIPS: I guess the one thing is 

19 the uranium rolling. Now, what I want to come back to 

20 is -- , you mentioned before about the 

21 straightening of the rods. I'm still unclear as to 

22 where the uranium rods as to where that happened 

23 and what documentation we have on -- on that. Where 

24 -- where were the rods -- the uranium rods, where were 

25 they straightened and do we have documentation on 

0221 

1 that? 

2 I think the only -- I think 

3 the only documentation that the Department of Energy 

4 produced is a purchase order from Mallinckrodt that 

5 called for the work to be done. 

6 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

7 I think there is zero DOE 

8 documentation on anything else about the process. 

9 , did -- did you not tell me -- I 

10 may be mistaken, but I -- I thought the only testimony 

11 we've had about the rod straightening was that it 

12 actually somehow got.done over in the rolling mill. 

13 Is -- please correct me if I'm wrong, but that's -­

14 We straightened it over on the 

15 flattening ovens. 

16 And where were they? 

17 In the rolling mill about 

18 middle ways in the mill. They put them in there and 

19 they -- they had weights that they could put on them. 

20 They'd straighten them out and then they -- from what 

21 I hear they put took them over to -- what's that, the 

22 tube and round deal in the casting -- I mean, the 

23 extrusion and ran it through there. 

24 What size were they? 

25 Huh? 

0222 

1 What -- what diameter were 
2 they? 
 

3 I -- I don't really know. 
 

4 Because that would 
 

5 determine what tube and round it would be on. 
 

6 Yeah. 
 

7 MR. PHILLIPS: The question -- the 
 

8 question that I have is where. Was it done in the 
 

9 rolling mill in Building -­


10 Five. 

11 MR. PHILLIPS: 5, or was it done in 

12 Building 6? 

13 Both. 

14 Both. 

15 I'm sure we bump straightened 

16 some in extrusion. 

17 Bump straightener or whatever. 

18 They -- they tried to roll 

19 straighten them. They tried to bump straighten them 

20 and it didn't do any good. They took them to the 

21 mill, they tried to roll straighten them. Then they 

22 tried to take them to a -- put them on a stretcher, it 

23 popped. They put them back in the cases and they set 

24 out they set out there in No. 2 Building for about 

25 two or three months. 

0223 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: And this was in 1960 

2 '59, '60? 

3 I can't tell you. I can't 

4 tell you what there was to do. We had -- we had a 

5 building full -- we had a building full of great big 

6 packages which were very, very protective on these 

7 rods because you had a -- you had a lead case. You 

8 had a carbon case. You had a another case, then you 

9 had straw on the outside of that. 

10 Are -- are you saying that 

11 the rods never did get satisfactorily straightened? 

12 No. Not to my knowledge. 

13 What happened to them? 

14 What? 

15 What happened to them? 

16 This is another thing that 

17 you never know anything about. They're there one day 

18 and they're gone the next day. Unless you are an 

19 authority in place to know, you don't know nothing 

20 about it. 

21 MR. PHILLIPS: So the answer is it took 

22 it took place in both Buildings 5 and 6? 

23 Yes. 
24 I'd -- I'd like to put on the 

25 record another comment, and that is that in all this 

0224 

1 work, you know, we're concentrating on one limb of 

2 two. One limb is what's got sent to Dow Madison. But 

3 there's got to be the other limb which is once the 

4 work got completed and got sent back to Mallinckrodt 

5 there should be additional documentation at 

6 Mallinckrodt. And as far as I can tell in all this 

7 time, seven years nobody has ever tried to find that 

8 information from Mallinckrodt. 

9 Now, you know, people might say well, why 

10 don't the petitioners do that. And I -- my comment is 

11 really different. My comment is why doesn't the 

12 Department of Energy do that. And we have tried. we 

13 have really tried. Why doesn't NIOSH do that you 

14 know? But that's a very important question. We don't 

15 even know what the rods were used for actually. I 

16 mean, some people have said fuel rods. We don't know 

17 what the -- you know, and here we're trying to 

18 calculate doses based on exposure to those rods. We 

19 don't even know the physical form of the rods. We 

20 don't know whether they were -- if they were fuel 

21 elements, were they clad, were they covered with 

22 oxide. That makes a lot of difference about the 

23 exposure you get. Do you have a little bit of -- a 

24 thin film of oxide, big? I don't know. But we really 

25 don't know very much about it is what it amounts to. 

0225 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: But it's certainly not in 

2 the record. 

3 No. And we can -- we can put 

4 it -- though I think that is important that it's in at 

5 least those two buildings. And again, the assumption 

6 from the FUSRAP report and the cleanup Building 5 I 

7 don't believe the rolling mill was ever assessed for 

8 uranium. They concentrated on Building 6. 

9 MR. PHILLIPS: Not in the original survey 

10 that I saw. 
 

11 Right. 
 

12 MR. PHILLIPS: But I I haven't 
 

13 completed that, but no. 
 

14 I don't I don't think so. 
 

15 MR. PHILLIPS: Not the one that was done 
 

16 by -­


17 ORNL. 
 

18 MR. PHILLIPS: Oak Ridge. 
 

19 Yeah. I think that's right. 
20 But now the Pangea cleanup for thorium and its 

21 radiological survey they did go through Building 5 and 

22 4, the whole thing. 

23 MR. PHILLIPS: Yeah. I haven't seen that 

24 one yet. 

25 Right. Well, I'll just tell 

0226 

1 you months ago I gave those reports and the contract 

2 information to Mr. Elliott at OKUS (phonetic). 

3 MR. PHILLIPS: I have it. 

4 Oh, okay. 

5 MR. PHILLIPS: I just -­ I haven't had a 

6 chance to go through it. 

7 Well, I don't know whether he 

8 got the -­ the whole Pangea report or not. 

9 MR. PHILLIPS: I have one. I don't know 

10 how long -­

11 I suggested that he did. 

12 MR. PHILLIPS: I don't know how long it 

13 is. I believe. If that's not true, I'll get back to 

14 you. But I believe I have it. 

15 Okay. Okay. 

16 MR. PHILLIPS: I just have not had time. 

17 Okay. 

18 MR. PHILLIPS: We covered this, where is 

19 the technical department metallurgical area located. 

20 I guess -­

21 The technical department 

22 was -­ I was through there. It was right up against 

23 -­ maybe about 60 feet away from -­ from Building 2. 

24 It was the main -­ in the main building. The sales 

25 offices were upstairs, and then they had the 

0227 

1 employment offices as you first came into the main 

2 doors. Then you walked through a small hallway and 

3 they had the spec lab on the -­ on one side. It was 

4 all very confined. It was all the classed in. That 

5 was part of the technical department. was 

6 the director there and -- and (phonetic) at the 

7 time. And was also -- he was part of the 

8 fracturing department where they tested the broken 

9 metals. And then right in the middle of all that was 

10 the -- was a small chemical lab. 

11 And then right before you walked out of 

12 the building going towards No. 2 Building they had 

13 they had different equipment you could use to sand or 

14 finish materials for testing for small materials. So 

15 that -- that was all the technical department in that 
16 area. It was all probably in a -­ in a hundred by 

17 hundred building. And there was a qentlemen you may 

18 remember, Was -­ that was ? 

19 What's that? 

20 (phonetic). 

21 Yeah. He -­ he was there. The engineers were mostly 

22 there. And -­ I want to say 

23 was the -­ was the And these 

24 were all small cubicles in that department. But the 

25 whole -­ all everything I've talked about here isn't 

0228 

1 any more than a hundred feet by a hundred foot 

2 building. 

3 MR. PHILLIPS: The next one we're not 

4 going to -­ we're not going to find anything. We 

5 talked about where the acid pickling was done. It was 

6 both in extrusion and in rolling, right? Both had a 

7 pickling area in extrusion and in the rolling mills? 

8 Yes. 

9 Chick, may I ask you a 

10 question that I -­ I'm really confused about. That 

11 third question -­

12 MR. PHILLIPS: Uh-huh. 

13 -­ where are these questions 

14 coming from? It -­ it doesn't make sense. Number 

15 one, where is Attachment G, Section G. -­ is that part 

16 of your report? Job descriptions from film badge 

17 survey of HK31. Well, number one, HK31 is a metal 

18 alloy. And what sort kind of a film badge survey 

19 would you have of a metal alloy? I mean, I can 

20 understand how you would have a film badge survey of 

21 workers who worked with that. But like I say, at Dow 

22 Madison there is no personal monitoring data. 

23 MR. PHILLIPS: No. I don't think it's -­

24 I'm going to have to get back to you on that. That -­

25 that -- like I say, I didn't review that well enough. 

0229 

1 There -- there is some film badge records, and this is 

2 what I was referring to before. But I think they were 

3 placed on top of thorium sheets, and I think that's 

4 what that's referring to. But I'm going to have to 

5 get back to you. I never seen further information. 

6 That information you should have. You don't have any? 

7 We don't. 

8 MR. PHILLIPS: You don't have it? 

9 Never -- never heard of it. 

10 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

11 So if -- if it's available -­
12 MR. PHILLIPS: If it's available, you'll 

13 get it. 

14 Yeah. No. I didn't mean it 

15 that way. I just meant that was a completely new 

16 thing to me. 

17 MR. PHILLIPS: Well, I knew when I 

18 misspoke -- thought I misspoke before I knew I had 

19 seen some film badge results -­

20 Uh-huh. You may have. 

21 MR. PHILLIPS: -- in all of this. 

22 You may have. 

23 MR. PHILLIPS: And I thought it was area 

24 monitoring. I knew it wasn't personnel. 

25 Oh, it may have been the area 

0230 

1 monitoring. 

2 MR. PHILLIPS: It was area monitoring in 

3 their -- their -- I have seen those results. But 

4 right now I can't remember where they are and what 

5 that refers to. So I'll have to -­

6 Well, there's an earlier 

7 question about a Silverstein report in '56. 

8 MR. PHILLIPS: Correct. 

9 And I think Silverstein, you 

10 know, I'm still not clear. I think that area data may 

11 relate partly to Bay City but partly to Dow Madison, 

12 and I'm not -- that was in some NRC reports. 

13 MR. PHILLIPS: I'll get -- I'll get that 

14 out and I'll get back -- I'll have to get back to you 

15 because I specifically don't know now. 

16 Okay. 

17 MR. PHILLIPS: My recollection is that at 

18 one time they placed some film badges on some thorium 

19 

20 Okay. I think you may be 

21 right. 

22 MR. PHILLIPS: -- material and made those 

23 measurements and that's 

24 Maybe that's in the NRC 

25 report. 

0231 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: -- what he's referring to. 

2 But it's not personnel monitoring. 

3 No. Right. 

4 MR. PHILLIPS: So there's no job 

5 description associated with it. So I'm -- I'm a 

6 little confused by 's question to be honest with 

7 you. 
8 Okay. But just on top of 

9 those thorium sheets? 

10 MR. PHILLIPS: Yeah. That's that's my 

11 recollection. But I will get back to you with that. 

12 Okay. That may be. Okay. 

13 Got you. Okay. 

14 MR. PHILLIPS: That was -- that was it as 

15 far as what I had. And I thank you for giving me some 

16 insight on that. So 

17 Okay. 

18 Can I ask a 

19 question. , the testing lab was in the main 

20 building? 

21 Yes. 

22 The main Dow building? 

23 Yes. 

24 Where all the 

25 administrative people worked? 

0232 

1 Yes. Yes. 

2 Would samples have been 

3 taken into that facility? 

4 Yes. 

5 Radioactive samples taken 

6 into that facility? 

7 The samples come -­

8 They were sent by carrier. 

9 I'm sorry? 

10 The samples from would be 

11 sent by carrier. 

12 The -- the alloy plant had 

13 a -- they had a vacuum system that sent us small tubes 

14 like they have at the banks now where you send your 

15 checks and everything else in. 

16 Sure. 

17 And they sent the sample. 

18 They sent those small plugs. They were only about two 

19 inches long and a quarter inch from the alloy plant to 

20 determine what the alloy was. They would read it, 

21 then they would send a message back what you should 

22 add to it which you could control it. Then you would 

23 send it back again. And so that was all done through 

24 a air -- a vacuum system sent all the way overhead 

25 from the alloy plant over to the technical department. 

0233 

1 So with all those samples 

2 there definitely has to be some records of what -- or 

3 there were some records of every heat essentially? 
4 Yeah. I think everything 

5 that was -- everything that was came through the alloy 

6 plant was entered. It run -- the boss of that was 

7 (phonetic), and he had like three or four 

8 men working constantly on the spec lab, the 

9 spectrograph reading all those, And right next to him 

10 was the what was it, the lab and that was done by 

11 (phonetic), the chief chemist of that 

12 area. 

13 Chemical lab. 

14 ·: The chemical lab. That 

15 would -- but these buildings were all -- they were 

16 within ten feet of each other. They was all close. 

17 Then they had -- then they had the area where they 

18 would take fractures. So yeah, there were metals that 

19 were brought in to be fractured and tested and sent 

20 out. 

21 Okay. Thank you. 

22 They took samples of each 

23 billet, they made a crack. That was in the 

24 subbasement three stories in the ground. And then 

25 they would take it into a heat oven and heat it and 

0234 

1 check them. And then that stuff was taken to the lab 


2 too mostly. 


3 Taken to a lab 


4 (inaudible). 


5 MR. PHILLIPS: I'm sorry. What was? What 


6 are we -­


7 They -- they was test labs. 


8 Like if you had -­


9 Test slices. 


10 Test slices. If you had a 

11 billet, you'd cut a one-inch piece off of it say like 

12 12 inches around, a one-inch piece. And that would be 

13 cut off. And they'd break it in a section of four, 

14 and then they'd put it into a heat room for like two 

15 hours and heat it to a certain temperature and they 

16 could check it. And that was on the thorium metal and 

17 everything they done that before they took it out to 

18 the lab. 

19 They stored a lot of that 

20 in No. 2 Building. 

21 They would check it for 

22 impurities and dirt and stuff. They had a code, a 

23 circle 2 or a circle 1. If it got to a circle 3, you 

24 had to shut the unit down and start the cast -- and 

25 clean your pots up and start the cast over again. 
0235 

1 MR. PHILLIPS: And this was done where -­

2 where was the testing done? 

3 In the subbasement. 

4 The subbasement where the saw 

5 is at. 

6 In alloy. 

7 It was a continuous cast. 

8 Continuous cast. It went 

9 down, and the saw cut them off to a certain length. 

10 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

11 It ran three stories deep in 

12 the floor, and it was a continuous cast. And there 

13 was a saw that would cut this way, and you could cut 

14 off any size you want. 

15 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

16 Like an eight-feet blade 

17 on that saw. 

18 Yeah. 

19 And it came down -- as the 

20 casting came down the blade came down at the same 

21 speed with it. And they would -- then it would be 

22 drop down. 

23 It was water cooled. 

24 It was always it was 

25 always wet down there, water cooled. 

0236 

1 · And that water went to the 
 

2 sewer. 
 

3 MR. PHILLIPS: And where was the testing 
 

4 done on that? 
 

5 The testing? 
 

6 MR. PHILLIPS: Yes. 
 

7 On the slabs? 
 

8 · · It was tested down there in 
 

9 the basement. 
 

10 MR. PHILLIPS: They had a they had a 

11 spectrograph down there? 

12 Right. They had a -­

13 No. 

14 -- a building -­

15 Next to it. 

16 All they did was check it with 

17 heat and break it. 

18 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. Structural testing? 

19 Right. 

20 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

21 Some -- some slices were taken 
22 to the x-ray lab. 

23 Yeah. 

24 From the basement they ran the 

25 radioactive. They would put them on pallets, and when 

0237 

1 they had so many they would pick up them up on a truck 

2 and take them down to (inaudible). 

3 MR. PHILLIPS: So they did some kind of 

4 structural testing down there and then a portion of 

5 that they would send up for content or a spec testing? 

6 And for x-ray testing I 

7 think I heard. Didn't you say x-ray? 

8 They had an x-ray there. 

9 They did it right there. 

10 No. We took everything down 

11 to the x-ray from the aluminum unit. 

12 Mr. Peterson knows where that 

13 room was. 

14 Your slabs -- your slabs 

15 would come out about 18 inches thick, four-foot wide, 

16 and they would slice an inch and a half to two-inch 

17 slice off of that. They would break it in to six 

18 pieces, and the inspector would stand there and 

19 visually inspect it to see -- see that it was clean. 

20 But now, that also would be used -- part of that would 

21 also be used to see that it was all okay and 

22 everything. And if it had to go to -- if it had to be 

23 x-rayed, okay, then part of the sample went down 

24 there. In the case of the billets they split them in 

25 half and visually inspected to see -- see that they 

0238 

1 were -- they were not fouled up with crud or stuff 

2 like that. And they sent that -- they would send part 

3 of that they would -- there was a process to get a 

4 pin out of that too. 

5 MR. PHILLIPS: I've seen the pin. 

6 They did the same thing in 

7 extrusion, we'd send those up, torsion rods. 

8 Yeah. 

9 Those slices were brought back 

10 after the inspectors got through them. Then one of 

11 them would throw them in a box, and we'd bring them 

12 back in and charge them and remelt them. 

13 MR. PHILLIPS: Okay. 

14 Do you -- do you know all 

15 know why we're talking about x-raying things? Did 

16 they ever x-ray any of the Mallinckrodt uranium or the 

17 thorium or any of those other things? 
18 From Mallinckrodt I do not 

19 know. 


20 Okay. 


21 What about thorium alloys, 


22 were they x-rayed? 


23 Very seldom. 


24 So what was x-rayed then? I 


25 mean I guess I'm trying to figure what. 


0239 


1 If you were making -- if 

2 you were making forging stock -­

3 Forging stock, okay. 

4 -- you x-rayed it. 

5 Okay. All right. Got you. 

6 That x-raying was in -- in 

7 the block building there in alloy, right? 

8 Right. 

9 Okay. 

10 That wasn't out in the 

11 testing lab. 

12 That was the warehouse, not 

13 the casting. It was a warehouse. 

14 Separate facility? 

15 Well, it's inside the big 

16 facility, but it's wired off. It's got a fence around 

17 it and a gate. And only people that had keys to the 

18 locks went in there. 

19 Okay. 

20 MR. PHILLIPS: Does anyone have anything 

21 that they think they can add? 

22 You better get going because 

23 we're getting older and we're not going to be able to 

24 answer your questions much longer. 

25 MR. PHILLIPS: You're not much older than 

0240 

1 I am. 

2 Sir -- sir, you'd better 

3 watch yourself, they may get hungry on you again. 

4 MR. PHILLIPS: Oh, you mean I may have to 

5 feed them dinner. Is that what you said? We're -­

6 we're adjourned. We're definitely adjourned. 

7 No. I really thank you very much for 

8 sharing this with us, for being willing to come down 

9 and spend all day doing this. It's been very 

10 informative for me. And it's on the record, and I'll 

11 go back over this again. And so again, I thank you 

12 very much, and it's nice to have met you too. 

13 Well, we thank you for your 
14 patience and for allowing us to get this on the 

15 record. 

16 

17 (Whereupon, the Worker Outreach Meeting 

18 concluded.) 

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0241 

1 

2 CERTIFICATE PAGE 

3 

I, , Court Reporter, do 

4 hereby certify that this Dow Worker Outreach Meeting 

was transcribed by me to the best of my ability. 

5 

I further certify that I am neither attorney 

6 nor counsel for nor related nor employed by any of the 

parties to the action in which this is taken; further, 

7 that I am not a relative or employee of any attorney 

or counsel employed by the parties hereto or 
 

8 financially interested in this action. 
 

9 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my 
 

hand and seal this 3rd day of July, 2007. 

10 

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[Court Reporter] 

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